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CALVINISM  IN 


^^^  \,i   MiiNUCf: 


BY  THE 

Rev.   N.   S.   McFETRIDGE. 


PHILADELPHIA: 
PRESBYTERIAN   BOARD  OP  PUBLICATION, 

No.  13M  Chestnut  Street. 


COPYRIGHT,    1882,    BY 

THE  TRUSTEES  OF  THE 

PRESBYTERIAN  BOARD  OF  PUBLICATION. 


ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED. 


Westcott  &  Thomson, 
Stereotypers  and  Electrotypers,  Philada. 


TO  THE 

Rev.  WILLIAM  C.  CATTELL,  D.D.,  LL.D., 

President  of  Lafayette  College, 

WHOSE   INSTRUCTION  IT  WAS   MY  PRIVILEGE   TO    RECEIVE, 
WHOSE  FRIENDSHIP  IT  IS  MY  HONOR  TO  SHARE, 

THIS  LITTLE  BOOK 


|s  giffetlionaltlg  gebicatcb. 


TO   THE   EEADER. 


This  little  book  is  made  up  of  six  Lectures 
which  were  delivered  in  the  Wakefield  Presby- 
terian Church,  German  town,  and  of  whose  pub- 
lication I  had,  at  the  time,  no  thought.  The 
Lectures  were  the  result  of  my  leisure  reading 
on  the  subject  during  several  years  of  a  busy 
pastorate.  On  leaving  the  theological  school  at 
Allegheny,  I  hardly  knew  whether  I  was  a  Cal- 
vinist  or  an  Arminian,  or  a  nameless  compound 
of  both,  although  I  had  had  the  benefit  of  Dr. 
A.  A.  Hodge's  matchless  teaching,  which  I  now 
regard  as  one  of  the  greatest  blessings  of  my 
life.  In  that  very  uncomfortable — yet  very  nat- 
ural— state  of  mind  I  set  myself  to  a  course  of 
reading,  doctrinal  and  historical,  as  opportunity 
offered.  One  of  the  results  of  that  readins" 
was  these  Lectures.  My  main  object  in  these 
discourses  was  to  look  into  the  workings  of  the 

8-..  I  ■'     in>a>-.„,jni    mm 

system  of  doctrines  called  "  Calvinistic,"  and  by 

5 


6  TO   THE  READER. 

its  effects  upon  those  who  most  heartily  adopted 
it  to  form  some  definite  estimate  of  its  character. 
Therefore  it  is  that  I  have  brought  forward  the 
testimony  of  a  large  number  of  accepted  author- 
ities, many  of  whom  are  not  Calvinists,  and  con- 
sequently not  prejudiced  in  favor  of  Calvinism. 

One  difficulty  with  which  I  constantly  met  in 
w'riting  these  Lectures  was  that  of  getting  so  large 
a  subject  within  limits  so  narrow.  And  although 
I  have  gone  over  the  ground  enthusiastically,  I 
have  endeavored  to  examine  the  subject  honestly, 
my  own  peculiar  state  of  mind  precluding  all 
controversial  designs.  Certainly,  I  can  say  that 
not  one  unfair  statement  has  been  intended;  and 
I  trust  that  the  cast  of  the  language  employed 
will  not  lead  any  one  to  infer  the  opposite. 

Hoping,  then,  that  this  little  book,  which  to  me 

has  been  a  labor  of  love,  will  be  of  some  use,  and 

that  it  may  speak  a  word  in  favor  of  a  system  of 

doctrine  which,  however  regarded,  is  based  on  the 

truths   of   God's    word    and   the   facts    of   human 

experience,  I  send  it  forth  into  the  great  world 

of  letters. 

N.  S.  McFETKIDGE. 

Germantown,  Philadelphia, 

Jan.  2,  1882.  s 


CONTENTS, 


I. 


PAGE. 

Calvinism  as  a  Political  Force 7 


II. 

Calvinism  as  a  Political  Force  in  the  History  of 
THE  United  States 59 

III. 
Calvinism  as  a  Moral  Force 103 


IV. 

Calvinism  as  an  Evangelizing  Force 132 

7 


Calvinism  in  History. 


I. 

CALVINISM  AS  A  POLITICAL  FORCE. 

rriHERE  is  nothing  which  so  constantly  controls 
-■-  the  mind  of  a  man,  and  so  intensely  affects  his 
character,  as  the  views  which  he  entertains  of  the 
Deity.  These  take  up  their  abode  in  the  inmost 
sanctuary  of  the  heart,  and  give  tone  to  all  its 
powers  and  coloring  to  all  its  actions.  Whatever 
the  forms  and  activities  of  the  outward  life,  as  a 
man  "thinketh  in  his  heart,  so  is  he.^'  Men  do, 
undoubtedly,  liken  God,  in  a  measure,  to  themselves, 
and  transfer  to  him  somewhat  of  their  own  passions 
and  predominating  moral  qualities,  and  determine 
the  choice  of  their  religion  by  the  prevailing  senti- 
ments of  their  hearts  and  the  habits  in  which  they 
have  been  trained;*  but  it  is  also  true  that  their 
conceptions  of  God  have  a  controlling  influence  in 
forming  their  character  and  regulating  their  con- 
*  See  McCosh,  Divine  Government,  p.  463. 


10  CALVINISM  IN  HISTORY. 

duct.  The  unfaithful  servant  in  the  parable  of 
the  Talents  gave  as  the  reason  for  his  idleness 
his  conception  of  the  master  as  a  hard  and  ex- 
acting man.  He  shaped  his  conduct  not  by  what 
the  master  was,  but  by  what  he  believed  him  to 
be.  And  if  that  divine  parable  have  a  world- 
wide application,  it  discloses  the  secret  spring  of 
a  man's  life  in  the  conceptions  which  he  has  of 
God.  As  these  are  true  or  false,  so  his  character 
and  life  will  be.  "As  long  as  we  look  upon  God 
as  an  exactor,  not  a  giver,  exactors,  and  not  givers, 
shall  we  be."  "All  the  value  of  service  rendered," 
says  Dr.  Arnot,  "by  intellectual  and  moral  beings 
depends  on  the  thoughts  of  God  which  they  en- 
tertain." Hence  no  sincerity  of  purpose  and  no 
intensity  of  zeal  can  atone  for  a  false  creed  or 
save  a  man  from  the  fatal  consequences  of  wrong 
principles. 

There  can  be,  therefore,  no  better  criterion  of  the 
character  of  a  man's  belief  than  the  effects  which 
that  belief  produces.  ^Grapes  do  not  grow  on 
bramble-bushes.  Illustrious  natures  do  not  form 
themselves  on  narrow  and  cruel  theories.  .  .  .  The 
practical  effect  of  a  belief  is  the  real  test  of  its 
soundness.  Where  we  find  an  heroic  life  appear- 
ing as  the  uniform  fruit  of  a  particular  mode  of 


CALVINISM  AS  A  POLITICAL  FORCE.        11 

opinion,  it  is  childish  to  argue  in  the  face  of  fact 
that  the   result   ought  to   have   been  different.".*/ 
"A  good  tree  cannot  bring  forth  evil  fruit,  neither 
can  a  corrupt  tree  bring  forth  good  fruit/'     It  is 
by  this  test  that  I  would  now  subject  Calvinism 
to  a  brief  historical  criticism.     Let  its  works  wit- 
ness to  it,  and  be  its  justification  or  condemnation. 
What,  then,  do  we  mean  by  Calvinism  ?     It  is 
foreign   to  my  purpose  to  enter  into  any  minute 
detail  of  the  distinctive  doctrines  of  Calvinism  or 
to  give  in  any  way  a  controversial   cast  to  these 
Lectures ;  for  while  I  believe  Calvinism  to  be  the 
system  of  doctrine  set  forth  in  the  word  and  works 
of  God,  and  therefore  most  favorable  to  all  godli- 
ness, I  am  free  cordially  to  allow  to  all  who  differ 
from   us  the  right  of  private  judgment,  and  sin- 
cerely to  rejoice  in  all  that  they  are  able  to  accom- 
plish for  the  well-being  of  men  and  the  glory  of 
God.     It  is  the  right  and  privilege  of  every  man 
and  of  every  body  of  men  to  give  a  reason  for  the 
hope  that  is  in  them,  and  to  maintain  by  all  lawful 
means  what  they  conceive  to  be  the  truth.    Jtntol- 
erance  is  no  part  of  our  creed,  unless  it  be  the  in- 
tolerance of  all   shams   and  lies   and  hypocrisies. 
Of   such   things   we   all   are,   I    trust,   intolerant. 
*  Fronde,  Calvinimi,  p.  8. 


12  CALVINISM  IN  HISTORY. 

But  as  regards  the  sacred  rights  and  privileges 
of  menj^Calvinism  is  one  of  the  most  tolerant  and 
liberal  of  all  systems  of  belieO  Its  adherents  are 
ever  found  ready  to  recognize  the  brotherhood  and 
equality  of  all  evangelical  churches,  and  to  unite 
with  them  in  all  liberal  ideas  and  Christian  en- 
terprises. 

What,  then,  do  we  mean  by  Calvinism  ?  I  will 
let  one  answer  who  has  gained  the  right  to  answer, 
and  than  whom  no  one  is  better  qualified  to  answer 
— the  Rev.  Dr.  Archibald  Alexander  Hodge. 

He  says:  ^'X^alvinism'  is  a  term  used  to  desig- 
nate, not  the  opinions  of  an  individual,  but  a  mode 
of  religious  thought  or  a  system  of  religious  doc- 
trines of  which  the  person  whose  name  it  bears 
was  an  eminent  expounder.  There  have  been  from 
the  beginning  only  three  generically  dictinct  sys- 
tems of  doctrine,  or  modes  of  conceiving  and  ad- 
justing the  facts  and  principles  understood  to  be 
/  revealed  in  the  Scriptures:  the  Pelagian,  which 
denies  the  guilt,  corruption  and  moral  impotence 
of  man,  and  makes  him  independent  of  the  super- 
natural assistance  of  God.  At  the  opposite  pole  is 
h^  ^  the  Calvinistic,  which  emphasizes  the  guilt  and 
moral  impotence  of  man,  exalts  the  justice  and 
sovereignty  of  God,  and  refers  salvation  absolutely 


CALVINISM  AS  A   POLITICAL  FORCE.       13 

to  the  undeserved  favor  and  new  creative  energy 
of  God.  Between  these  comes  the  manifold  and 
elastic  system  of  compromise  once  known  as  Semi- 
Pelagianism,  and  in  modern  times  as  Arminianism, 
which  admits  man's  original  corruption,  but  denies 
his  guilt ;  regards  redemption  as  a  compensation 
for  innate,  and  consequently  irresponsible,  disabil- 
ities; and  refers  the  moral  restoration  of  the  indi- 
vidual to  the  co-operation  of  the  human  with  the 
divine  energy,  the  determining  factor  being  the 
human  will."* 

We  have  here,  in  succinct  form,  an  accurate  def- 
inition of  the  two  systems  of  theology  which  are 
in  active  operation  to-day,  and  which.  Dr.  Pusey 
says,  "are  now,  and  probably  for  the  last  time,  in 
conflict'' t — Calvinism  and  Arminianism,  the  former 
taking  its  name  from  John  Calvin,  a  Frenchman, 
born  in  1519,  and  the  latter  taking  its  name  from 
James  Herman  or  (in  Latin  dress)  Arminius,  a 
Dutchman,  born  in  1560.  These  men  did  not 
originate  the  systems  of  doctrine  which  bear  their 
names,  but  only  expounded  them  more  fully  and 
developed  them  into  a  more  perfect  form.  The 
same  views  were  maintained  at  least  as  early  as 

*  Johnson's  Cydopcedia,  art.  "  Calvinism." 
+  His  Letter  to  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury 


14  CALVINISM  IN  HISTORY. 

the  fourth  century,  when  Augustine  and  Pelagius 
stood  in  much  the  same  attitude  to  each  other  as 
Calvin  and  Arminius  in  the  sixteenth  century. 
Hence  Calvinism  is  frequently  and  correctly  called 
Augustinianism ;  and  Arminianism,  Semi- Pelagian- 
ism.  These  are  the  two  systems  which  are  now 
most  extensively  held,  and  with  the  one  or  the 
other  of  them  all  other  Christian  theological  sys- 
tems have  organic  sympathies. 

Out  of  Arianism  grew  Socinianism,  and  out  of 
that  modern  (Unitarianism,  which  makes  Christ 
neither  a  man  nor  God,  but  a  created  being  some- 
where above  angels  and  between  humanity  and 
Deity.*^  And  while  Arminianism  is  neither  Arian 
nor  Sociaian  nor  Unitarian,  these  all  are  Armin- 
ian.  As  the  writer  of  the  article  "Arminianism" 
in  the  American  Cyclopcedia  says,  "Every  new 
phase  of  Arianism,  to  this  day,  is  infallibly  Ar- 
minian,  though  the  organic  connection  of  the  two 
is  not  so  manifest  from  the  distinctively  Arminian 
side,  at  least  in  modern  times." 

Their  organic  connection  might  be  easily  traced, 
and  their  natural  affinity  easily  shown,  did  it  come 
within  our  present  purpose.     But  there  are  other 

*  See  Channing-'s  Works,  and  Joseph  Cook's  exposition  of 
them  in  The  Independent,  March,  1880. 


/ 


CALVimS3f  AS  A   POLITICAL  FORCE.       15 

connections  and  affinities  of  these  doctrines  which 
demand  our  present  consideration.  Each  of  these 
two  systems,  Calvinism  and  Arminianism,  has  an 
organic  connection  and  a  natural  affinity  with  a 
distinct  form  of  church  government — the  Calvin- 
istic  with  the  presbyterial  or  independent  form, 
and  the  Arminian  with  the  prelatical  or  episcopal 
form.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  this  has  always  been 
so.  The  Koman  Episcopal  Church  has  always 
been,  as  a  Church,  Arminian  in  doctrine;  the 
Protestant  Episcopal  Church  soon  became,  as  a 
Church,  Arminian  in  doctrine,  although  her  Thir- 
ty-nine Articles  of  Faith  are  Calvinistic.  I  once 
asked  a  learned  Episcopal  rector  how  it  came  that 
while  his  Confession  of  Faith  is  Calvinistic  his 
Church  is  Arminian.  Smiling,  he  replied,  '^The 
Calvinism  in  the  Articles  is  so  weak  that  you 
could  drive  a  horse  and  cart  through  it  at  some 
points.''  That,  I  presume,  accounts  for  it.  It  is 
not  strong  enough  to  hold  the  Church  up  to  it 
or  to  resist  the  powerful  tendency  of  Episcopacy 
to  Arminian  doctrines.  The  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church  also  is,  as  a  Church,  Arminian.  The  fact, 
then,  is  that  Arminianism  and  Episcopacy  do  nat- 
urally sympathize  and  affiliate.  There  is  that  in 
the   Arminian   doctrines    of  emotions   and   works 


16  CALVINISM  IN  HISTORY. 

which  leads  directly  to  the  external  forms  and 
ceremonies  of  Prelacy  or  Episcopacy. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  Reformed  churches 
which  took  the  Presbyterian  form  of  government 
have  always  been  Galvinistic.  As  the  Rev.  Albert 
Barnes  says,  ^^  There  are  no  permanent  Arminian, 
Pelagian,  Socinian  presbyteries,  synods,  general  as- 
semblies on  earth.  There  are  no  permanent  in- 
stances where  these  forms  of  belief  or  unbelief 
take  on  the  presbyterial  form.  There  are  no 
Presbyterian  forms  of  ecclesiastical  administration 
where  they  would  be  long  retained."* 

This  connection  between  the  doctrine  and  the 
form  of  loorship  is  not  superficial  or  accidental, 
but  inherent.  A  system  of  doctrine,  as  Pelagian- 
ism,  which  teaches /salvation  by  our  own  good 
workyor,  as  Arminianism,  which  teache^salvation 
partly  by  works  and  partly  by  grace|)of  necessity 
sympathizes  and  affiliates  with  rites  and  ceremonies, 
and  lays,  in  the  very  spirit  of  it,  the  foundation  for 
a  ritualistic  service.  Romanism,  which  is  rigid 
Arminianism,  and  Presbyterianism,  which  is  strict 
Calvinism,  are  the  very  antipodes  of  each  other, 
and  have  always  bg.^  in  the  most  uncompromis- 

*  As  quoted  by  Breed,  Presbyterianism  Three  Hundred  Years 
Ago,  p.  11. 


CALVINISM  AS  A   POLITICAL  FORCE, 


'Q 


ing  hostility.  Hence  the  historical  fact  that  the 
higher  the  ^'Churchman"  the  more  intensely  Ar- 
minian  he  is.  "  It  is  a  conspicuous  fact  of  Eng- 
lish history/'  says  Dr.  Hodge,  "that  high  views  as 
to  the  prerogatives  of  the  ministry  have  always 
antagonized  Calvinistic  doctrines.'^  *  Hence  also 
the  simple  republican  form  of  worship  in  the 
Calvinistic  churches. 

Buckle,  who,  himself  a  fatalist,  cannot  be  charged 
with  partiality  toward  any  Church,  says :  "  It  is  an 
•interesting  fact  thatfthe  doctrines  which  in  England  ) 
are  called  Calvinistic  have  always  been  connected  \ 
with  a  democratic  spirit,\while  those  of  Arminian-  \ 
ism  have  found  most  tav^or  among  the  aristocratic, 
or  protective,  party.  In  the  republics  of  Switzer- 
land, of  North  America  and  of  Holland,  Calvinism 
was  always  the  popular  creed.  On  the  other  hand, 
in  those  evil  days  immediately  after  the  death  of 
Elizabeth,  when  our  liberties  were  in  imminent 
peril,  when  the  Church  of  England,  aided  by  the 
Crown,  attempted  to  subjugate  the  consciences  of 
men,  and  when  the  monstrous  claim  of  the  divine 
right  of  Episcopacy  was  first  put  forward, — then  it 
was  that  Arminian  ism  became  the  cherished  doctrine 
of  the  ablest  and  most  ambitious  of  the  ecclesiastic- 
*  JohnsorCs  Cydopcedia,  art.  "  Calvinism." 


18  CALVINISM  IN  HISTORY. 

al  party.  And  in  that  sharp  retribution  which 
followed,  the  Puritans  and  Independents,  by  ^vhom 
the  punishment  was  inflicted,  were,  with  scarcely  an 
exception,  Calvinists ;  nor  should  we  forget  that  the 
first  open  movement  against  Charles  proceeded  from 
Scotland,  where  the  principles  of  Calvin  had  long 
been  in  the  ascendant."  * 

Thus  we  see  how  Arminianism,  taking  to  an  aris- 
tocratic form  of  church  government,  tends  toward 
a  monarchy  in  civil  affairs,  while  Calvinism,  taking 
to  a  republican  form  of  church  government,  tends 
toward  a  democracy  in  civil  affairs. 

Allow  me  to  quote  again  from  this  eminent  Eng- 
lish author.  He  says:  "The  first  circumstance  by 
wliich  we  must  be  struck  is,  that  Calvinism  is  a 
doctrine  for  the  poor  and  Arminianism  for  the  rich. 
A  creed  which  insists  upon  the  necessity  of  faith 
must  be  less  costly  than  one  which  insists  upon  the 
necessity  of  works.  In  the  former  case  the  sinner 
seeks  salvation  by  the  strength  of  his  belief;  in  the 
latter  case  he  seeks  it  by  the  fullness  of  his  con- 
tributions "  .  .  .  "  Tliis  is  the  first  great  practical 
divergence  of  the  two  creeds."  .  .  .  "It  is  also 
observable  that  the  Church  of  Rome,  whose  wor- 
ship is  addressed  mainly  to  the  senses,  and  which 
*  History  of  Civilization,  i.  611. 


CALVINISM  AS  A   POLITICAL  FORCE.       19 

delights  in  splendid  cathedrals  and  pompous  cere- 
monies, has  always  displayed  against  the  Calvinists 
an  animosity  far  greater  than  she  has  done  against 
any  other  Protestant  sect."  Continuing  in  this 
strain,  he  observes  what  he  calls  "the  aristocratic 
tendency  of  Arminianism  and  the  democratic  tend- 
ency of  Calvinism,"  and  says :  "  The  more  any 
society  tends  to  equality,  the  more  likely  it  is  that 
its  theological  opinions  will  be  Calvinistic;  while 
the  more  a  society  tends  toward  inequality,  the 
greater  the  probability  of  those  opinions  being 
Arminian."  * 

These  views  of  this  writer  are  abundantly  con- 
firmed by  the  history  bearing  upon  the  subject. 
The  historical  fact  is  that  Arminianism  tends  to 
beget  and  to  foster  classes  and  castes  in  society,  and 
to  build  up  a  gorgeous  ritual  wherever  it  gains  a 
foothold.  And  so  it  comes  to  be  true,  on  the  other 
hand,  what  the  historian  Bancroft  observes,  that  '^a 
richly-endowed  Church  always  leads  to  Arminian- 
ism and  justification  by  works."  f 

Now  let  us  glance  at  the  explanation  of  this  his- 
torical fact. 

The  prelatical  or  episcopal  form  of  church  gov- 

*  History  English  Civil.,  i.  pp.  612,  613. 
t  History  United  States,  ix.  p.  503. 


20  CALVINISM  IN  HISTORY. 

ernment,  which  has  always  been  connected  with 
Arminian  doctrines,  asserts  that  all  cliurch  power 
is  vested  in  the  clergy ;  while  the  republican  form, 
which  has  always  accompanied  Calvinistic  doc- 
trines, asserts  that  all  church  power  is  vested  in 
the  Church;  that  is,  in  the  people.  This  is  a 
radical  difference,  and  ^'  touches  the  very  essence 
of  things."  If  all  the  power  be  in  the  clergy,  then 
the  people  are  practically  bound  to  passive  obedi- 
ence in  all  matters  of  faith  and  practice ;  but  if  all 
power  be  in  the  Church,  then  the  people  have  a 
right  to  participate  in  all  matters  pertaining  to 
questions  of  faith  and  practice.  Thus  the  one 
system  subjects  the  people  to  the  autocratic  orders 
of  a  superior,  the  centre  principle  of  monarchy 
and  despotism;  while  the  other  system  elevates 
the  people  to  an  equality  in  authority,  the  centre 
principle  of  democracy. 

On  this  point  I  will  quote  a  few  sentences  from 
the  late  Dr.  Charles  Hodge.  "The  theory,"  he 
observes,  "  that  all  church  power  vests  in  a  divine- 
ly-constituted hierarchy  begets  the  theory  that  all 
civil  power  vests,  of  divine  right,  in  kings  and 
nobles.  And  the  theory  that  church  power  vests 
in  the  Church  itself,  and  all  church  officers  are 
servants   of  the   Church,  of  necessity  begets  the 


CALVINISM  AS  A   POLITICAL  FORCE.       21 

theory  that  civil  power  vests  in  the  people,  and 
that  civil  magistrates  are  servants  of  the  people. 
These  theories  God  has  joined  together,  and  no 
man  can  put  them  asunder.  It  was  therefore  by 
an  infallible  instinct  that  the  unfortunate  Charles 
of  England  said,  *  No  bishop,  no  king ;  '  by  which 
he  meant  that  if  there  is  no  despotic  power  in  the 
Church,  there  can  be  no  despotic  power  in  the  State, 
or  if  there  be  liberty  in  the  Church,  there  will  be 
liberty  in  the  State.''* 

We  find,  then,  these  three  propositions  proved 
by  historical  fact  and  logical  sequence :  First,  Ar- 
minianism  associates  itself  with  an  episcopal  form 
of  church  government,  and  Calvinism  with  a  re- 
publican form  of  church  government ;  second. 
Episcopacy  fosters  ideas  of  inequality  in  society 
and  of  monarchy  and  one-man  power  in  civil 
affairs;  and,  third,  Arminianism  is  unfavorable  to 
civil  liberty,  and  Calvinism  is  unfavorable  to  des- 
potism. The  despotic  rulers  of  former  days  were 
not  slow  to  observe  the  correctness  of  these  prop- 
ositions, and,  claiming  the  divine  right  of  kings, 
feared  Calvinism  as  republicanism  itself. 

Now,  consider,  for  a  moment,  some  of  the  rea- 
sons which  lie  in  the  system  of  Calvinism  for  its 

*  What  is  Presbyterianismf  p.  11. 


22  CAL VINISM  IN  HISTOBY. 

strong  hostility  to  all  despotism  and  its  powerful 
influence  in  favor  of  civil  liberty. 

One  reason  for  this  may  be  found  in  the  bound- 
-i::^ary-line  wliich  it  draws  between  Church  and  State. 
It  gives  to  each  its  distinct  sphere,  and  demands 
that  the  one  shall  not  assume  the  prerogatives  of 
the  other.  In  this  it  diifers  from  Lutheranism, 
"which  soon  settled  down  at  peace  with  princes, 
while  Calvinism  was  ever  advancing  and  ever  con- 
tending with  the  rulers  of  this  world;"*  and  from 
the  Anglican  system,  which  began  with  Henry 
VIII.  as  its  head  in  place  of  the  pope.  This 
distinction  between  Church  and  State  is,  as  the 
eminent  Yale  professor,  Dr.  Fisher,  remarks,  "the 
first  step,  the  necessary  condition,  in  the  develop- 
ment of  religious  liberty,  without  w^hich  civil  lib- 
erty is  an  impossibility."  t 

Another  reason  is  found  in  the  repiihlican  char- 
acter of  its  polity.  Its  clergy  are  on  a  perfect 
equality.  No  one  of  them  stands  higher  in  au- 
thority than  another.  They  are  all  alike  bishops. 
Its  laymen  share  equally  with  its  clergymen  in 
all  official  acts — in  the  discussion  and  decision  of 
all   matters  of  doctrine  and  practice.     They  have 

*  Dr.  Henry  B.  Smith,  Faith  and  Philosophy. 
f  Hist.  Reformation. 


CALVINISM  AS  A   POLITICAL  FORCE.        23 

a  most  important  part  given  them  in  the  right  of 
choosing  and  calling  their  own  pastor.  By  being 
thus  rulers  in  the  Church  they  are  taught  to  claim 
and  exercise  the  same  liberty  in  the  State.  It  is 
this  feature  of  the  Calvinistic  system  which  has, 
from  the  first,  exalted  the  layman.  It  constitutes, 
not  the  clergy,  but  the  Christian  people,  the  in- 
terpreter of  the  divine  will.  To  it  the  voice  of 
the  majority  is  the  voice  of  God,  and  the  issue, 
therefore,  is,  as  Bancroft  observes,  '^popular  sov- 
ereignty." * 

Another  reason  why  Calvinism  is  favorable  to 
liberty  lies  in  its  theology.  "The  sense  of  the 
exaltation  of  the  Almighty  Ruler,"  says  Dr. 
Fisher,  "and  of  his  intimate  connection  wdth  the 
minutest  incidents  and  obligations  of  human  life, 
which  is  fostered  by  this  theology,  dwarfs  all 
earthly  potentates.  An  intense  spirituality,  a-con- 
sciousness  that  this  life  is  but  an  infinitesimal  frac- 
tion of  human  existence,  dissipates  the  feeling  of 
personal  homage  for  men,  however  high  their  sta- 
tion, and  dulls  the  lustre  of  all  earthly  grandeur." 
.  .  .  "The  Calvinist,  unlike  the  Romanist,  dis- 
penses Avith  a  human  priesthood,  which  has  not 
only  often  proved  a  powerful  direct  auxiliary  to 
*  Hisf.  U.  S.,  I  pp.  44,  461. 


24  CALVINISM  IN  HISTORY. 

temporal  rulers,  but  has  educated  the  sentiments  to 
a  habit  of  subjection,  which  renders  submission  to 
such  rulers  more  facile  and  less  easy  to  shake 
off."  * 
^  Its  doctrine  of  predestination  also  is  calculated 
to  have  a  tremendous  iijfluence  on  the  political 
character  of  its  adherents.  This  has  not  escaped 
the  notice  of  historians.  Bancroft,  who,  while 
adopting  another  religious  creed,  has  awarded  to 
Calvinism  the  palm  for  its  influence  in  favor  of 
religious  and  civil  liberty,  remarks  that  "the  po- 
litical character  of  Calvinism,  which,  with  one 
consent  and  with  instinctive  judgment,  the  mon- 
archs  of  that  day  feared  as  republicanism,  is  ex- 
pressed  in  a  single  word — predestination.  Did  a 
proud  aristocracy  trace  its  lineage  through  gener- 
ations of  a  highborn  ancestry,  the  republican  Re- 
formers, with  a  loftier  pride,  invaded  the  invisible 
world,  and  from  the  book  of  life  brought  down 
the  record  of  the  noblest  enfranchisement,  decreed 
from  eternity  by  the  King  of  kings.  .  .  .  They 
went  forth  in  confidence,  .  .  .  and,  standing  surely 
amidst  the  crumbling  fabrics  of  centuries  of  super- 
stition, they  had  faith  in  one  another;  and  the 
martyrdoms  of  Cambray,  the  fires  of  Smithfield, 
*  See  Fisher's  Hist.  Reformation. 


CALVINISM  AS  A   POLITICAL  FORCE.       25 

the  surrender  of  benefices  by  two  thousand  non-con- 
forming Presbyterians,  attest  their  perseverance."  * 

This  doctrine  "  inspires  a  resolute,  ahuost  defiant, 
freedom  in  those  who  deem  themselves  the  subjects 
of  God's  electing  grace :  in  all  things  they  are  more 
than  conquerors  through  the  confidence  that  nothing 
shall  be  able  to  separate  them  from  the  love  of  God. 
No  doctrine  of  the  dignity  of  human  nature,  of  the 
rights  of  man,  of  national  liberty,  of  social  equal- 
ity, can  create  such  a  resolve  for  the  freedom  of  th 
soul  as  this  personal  conviction  of  God's  favoring 
and  protecting  sovereignty.  He  who  has  this  faith 
feels  that  he  is  compassed  about  with  everlasting 
love,  guided  with  everlasting  strength ;  his  will  is 
the  tempered  steel  that  no  fire  can  melt,  no  force  can 
break.  Such  faith  is  freedom ;  and  this  spiritual 
freedom  is  the  source  and  strength  of  all  other 
freedom.'' t 

Having  thus  briefly  traced  the  spirit  and  tendency 
of  Calvinism  in  relation  to  liberty,  I  will  now  indi- 
cate, from  the  testimony  of  those  most  capable  of 
giving  impartial  judgment,  what  Calvinism  has 
done  for   civil   liberty. 

*  Hist.  U.  S.,  vol.  ii.  p.  461. 

f  The  United  States  as  a  Nation,  p.  30,  by  Rev.  Joseph  Thomp- 
son, D.  D.,  LL.D. 


26  CALVINISM  IN  HISTORY, 

And  here  let  it  be  remarked  that  events  follow 
principles ;  that  mind  rules  the  world ;  that  thought 
is  more  powerful  than  cannon ;  that  ''  all  history  is 
in  its  inmost  nature  religious ;"  *  and  that,  as  John 
von  Muller  says,  "  Christ  is  the  key  to  the  history 
of  the  world/'  and,  as  Carlyle  says,  "  the  spiritual 
will  always  body  itself  forth  in  the  temporal  history 
of  men."  In  the  formation  of  the  modern  nations 
religion  performed  a  principal  part.  The  great 
movements  out  of  which  the  present  civilized  na- 
tions sprung  Avere  religious  through  and  through. 

What  part,  then,  had  Calvinism  in  begetting 
^^''  and  shaping  and  controlling  those  movements? 
What  has  it  to  show  as  the  result  of  its  labors? 
A  rich  possession  indeed.  A  glorious  record  be- 
longs to  it  in  the  history  of  modern  civilization. 

Be  it  remembered  that  Luther  was  an  Augustin- 

ian  or  Calvinistic  monk,  and  that  it  was  from  this 

rigorous  theology  that  he  learned  the  great  truth, 

the  pivot  of  the  Reformation  and  the  kindling  flame 

of  civilization — salvation,  not  by   works,   but  by 

faith  alone.     True,  indeed,  that  truth  was  first  laid 

down  in  the  word  of  God.     We  can  accept  as  com- 

,  plimentary  the  sneering  remark  of  Ernest  Renan, 

'   that  Paul  begat  Augustine,  and  Augustine  begat 

*  Dr.  H.  B.  Smith's  Faith  and  Philosophy. 


CALVINISM  AS  A   POLITICAL  FORCE.       27 

Calvin,  and  Calvin  begat  the  Jansenists  and  their 
brethren.  We  glory  in  the  lineal  descent.  >  And 
we  stand  willing  also  to  acknowledge  the  kindness 
of  Matthew  Arnold,  w-hen,  in  his  vain  attempts  to 
cut  Calvinism  out  of  the  New  Testament  and  fling 
it  away,  he  declares  Paul  to  have  been  the  author 
of  it,  but  excuses  the  great  apostle  for  being  guilty 
of  it  by  saying  that  he  allowed  himself  "to  fall 
into  it''  through  mistake  and  through  the  specu- 
lative bent  of  his  intellect.*  But  one  might  be 
tempted  to  ask  Mr.  Arnold,  How  could  Paul  have 
"fallen  into  it"  unless  it  had  been  already  in  exist- 
ence ?  And  from  what  ground  did  the  great  apostle 
fall  ?  Truly  the  Church  is  in  a  sad  plight  if  the 
doctrines  of  the  apostles  are  the  errors  which  they 
"  fell  into  "  !  It  is  pleasing,  however,  to  some  of  us 
to  find  such  men  as  these  attributing  the  paternity 
of  Calvinism  to  St.  Paul,  and  to  find  them  driven  to 
such  extremities  in  their  eiforts  to  explain  it  away 
as  to  be  compelled  to  say  that  Paul  was  mad,  or,  as 
an  Arminian  clergyman  of  our  own  city  has  said, 
that  "  Paul  was  not  converted  when  he  wrote  the 
book  of  Romans." 

So,  then,  enemies  themselves  being  witness,  Paul 
had  laid  down  the  grand  truth  which  Luther  found 

*  St.  Paul  and  Priritanism. 


28  CALVINISM  IN  HISTORY. 

in  his  study  of  the  Angustinian  theology  and  of  the 
Bible.  The  Arminianism  of  the  Church  of  Rome 
had  so  perverted  that  truth,  and  so  wrapped  it  over 
with  its  "  works  of  righteousness,"  as  to  make  it 
prajctically  unknown.  It  was  not  till  Luther  had 
grasped  it  clearly  and  firmly  in  his  intellect  and 
heart  that  it  became  again  a  living  thing  and  a 
mighty  force.  Henceforth  the  secret  power  and 
stirring  watchword  of  the  Reformation  was  justifi- 
cation by  faith  alone.  It  was  this  cleanly-cut  and 
strong  theology  which  began  the  Reformation,  and 
which  carried  it  on  through  fire  and  flood,  through 
all  opposition  and  terror  and  persecution  and  mis- 
ery, to  its  glorious  consummation.  When  in  the 
great  toil  and  roar  of  the  conflict  the  fiery  nature 
of  Luther  began  to  chill,  and  he  began  to  tempor- 
ize with  civil  rulers,  and  to  settle  down  in  harmony 
with  them,  it  was  this  same  uncompromising  the- 
ology of  the  Genevan  school  which  heroically  and 
triumphantly  waged  the  conflict  to  the  end.  I  but 
repeat  the  testimony  of  history,  friendly  and  un- 
friendly to  Calvinism,  when  I  say  that  had  it  not 
been  for  the  strong,  unflinching,  systematic  spirit 
and  character  of  the  theology  of  Calvin,  the  Ref- 
ormation would  have  been  lost  to  the  world.  That 
is  one  thing  which  Calvinism  has  done.     That  is 


CALVINISM  AS  A   POLITICAL  FORCE.       29 

one  of  the  fruits  which  have  grown  on  this  vigor- 
ous old  tree. 

Hence  it  was  that  ahnost  everywhere  the  Eef- 
ormation  assumed  the  Calvinistic  type,  supplanting 
or  absorbing  all  other  reforming  ideas.  Even  in 
the  lands,  such  as  Germany  and  Switzerland,  where 
the  peculiarly  Lutheran  ideas  had  first  found  ac- 
ceptance, it  was  "through  the  influence  of  Calvin- 
istic principles  that  the  Protestantism  of  those  lands 
assumed  an  external  form  and  organization,  and  at- 
tained to  definite  dimensions  in  the  history  of  the 
world."*  In  this  system  only  were  found  that 
vigor  and  that  earnestness  which  are  essential  to 
the  highest  success.  Even  Luther  himself,  when 
the  splendor  of  Calvin's  name  was  outshining  his 
own,  withheld  not  his  admiration  and  praise  from 
the  strict  discipline  which  prevailed  in  the  Cal- 
vinistic churches,  and  from  that  lofty  earnestness 
which  pervades  the  whole  Calvinistic  system  of 
reform,  and  which  gave  it  more  and  more  of  that 
steady  consistency  that  was  requisite  in  its  conflict 
with  opposing  powers,  and  without  which  no  vic- 
tory is  ever  attained.f 

"The  Lutheran  congregations  were  but  half 
emancipated   from   superstition,  and   shrank   from 

*  Hagenbach's  Hist.  Be/.,  vol.  ii.  p.  350,         f  Hagenbach. 


30  CALVINISM  IN  HISTORY. 

pressing  the  struggle  to  extremities;  and  half 
measures  meant  half-heartedness,  convictions  which 
were  but  half  convictions,  and  truth  with  an  alloy 
of  falsehood.  Half  measures,  however,  would  not 
quench  the  bonfires  of  Philip  of  Spain  or  raise 
men  in  France  or  Scotland  who  w^ould  meet  crest 
to  crest  the  princes  of  the  house  of  Lorraine.  The 
Reformers  required  a  position  more  sharply  defined 
and  a  sterner  leader,  and  that  leader  they  found  in 
John  Calvin.  .  .  .  For  hard  times  hard  men  are 
needed,  and  intellects  which  can  piei'ce  to  the  roots 
where  truth  and  lies  part  company.  It  fares  ill 
with  the  soldiers  of  religion  when  Hhe  accursed 
thing'  is  in  the  camp.  Aiid  this  is  to  be  said  of 
Calvin,*  that,  so  far  as  the  state  of  knowledge  per- 
mitted, no  eye  could  have  detected  more  keenly  the 
unsound  spots  in  the  creed  of  the  Church,  nor  was 
there  a  Reformer  in  Europe  so  resolute  to  exercise, 
tear  out  and  destroy  what  was  distinctly  seen  to  be 
false — so  resolute  to  establish  what  was  true  in  its 
place,  and  make  truth,  to  the  last  fibre  of  it,  the 
rule  of  practical  life.''* 

This  is  the  testimony  of  a  man  who  has  no  par- 
ticular love  for  Calvinism,  but  who  from  the  high 
ground  of  learned   investigation    looks   at   it  and 
^  Froude,  Calvinism,  p.  42. 


CALVINISM  AS  A   POLITICAL  FORCE.       31 

the  man  whose  name  it  bears  through  the  light  of 
historical  fact. 

And  in  farther  explication  of  this  thought  allow 
me  to  quote  again  from  the  same  authority :  "  Was 
it  not  written  long  ago,  ^He  that  will  save  his  soul/ 
shall  lose  it'?     If  w^e  think  of  religion  only  as  a 
means  of  escaping  what  we  call  the  wrath  to  come, 
we  shall  not  escape  it;   we  are  already  under  it; 
we  are  under  the  burden  of  death,  for  we  care  only 
for  ourselves.     This  Avas  not  the  religion  of  your 
fathers;   this  was  not  the  Calvinism  which  over- 
threw spiritual  wickedness,  and  hurled  kings  from 
their  thrones,  and  purged  England  and  Scotland, 
for  -a  time  at  least,  of  lies  and  charlatanry.     Cal- 
vinism was  the  spirit  which  rises  in  revolt  against    / 
untruth — the  spirit  which,  as  I  have  shown  you,    I 
has  appeared  and  reappeared,  and  in  due  time  will     ^ 
appear  again  unless  God  be  a  delusion  and  man  be      I 
as  the  beasts  that  perish.     For  it  is  but  the  inflash- 
ing  upon  the  conscience  of  the  nature  and  origin 
of  the   laws   by   which   mankind   are   governed — 
laws   which  exist  whether  we  acknowledg^e  them 
or  whether  we  deny  them,  and  will  have  their  way, 
to  our  own  weal  or  woe,  according  to  the  attitude 
in  which  we  place  ourselves  toward  them — inher- 
ent, like  the  laws   of  gravity,  in  the  nature  of 


32  CALVINISM  IN  HISTORY. 

things ;  not  made  by  us,  not  to  be  altered  by  us, 
but  to  be  discerned  and  obeyed  by  us  at  our  ever- 
lasting peril/^* 

This  was  the  Calvinism  which  flashed  forth  in 
the  great  Reforming  days — the  spirit  which,  when 
Romanists  and  despots  claimed  the  right  to  burn 
all  who  differed  from  them,  inspired  men  and 
women  and  youth  to  go  forth,  Bible  and  sword 
in  hand,  to  the  greatest  daring,  appealing  for  the 
justice  of  their  cause  and  the  victory  of  their  arms 
to  the  Lord  of  hosts.  This  was  the  spirit  which 
acted  in  those  men  "who  attracted  to  their  ranks 
almost  every  man  in  Western  Europe  who  hated 
a  lie;"  who  when  they  were  crushed  down  rose 
again;  %ho  "abhorred  as  no  body  of  men  ever 
more  abhorred  all  conscious  mendacity,  all  impur- 
ity, all  moral  wrong  of  every  kind,  so  far  as  they 
could  recognize  it  f  who,  though  they  did  not  ut- 
terly destroy  Romanism,  "drew  its  fangs,  and  forced 
it  to  abandon  that  detestable  principle  that  it  was 
entitled  to  murder  those  who  dissented  from  it." 
This  was  the  spirit  out  of  which  came,  and  by 
which  was  nourished,  the  religious  and  civil  lib- 
erties of  Christendom ;  of  which  Bancroft  says, 
"More  truly  benevolent  to  the  human  race  than 
*  Froude's  Calvinism,  pp.  46,  47. 


CALVINISM  AS  A   POLITICAL  FORCE.       33 

Soloiij  more  self-denying  than  Lycurgus,  the  genius 
of  Calvin  infused  enduring  elements  into  the  in- 
stitutions of  Geneva,  and  made  it  for  the  modern 
world  the  impregnable  fortress  of  popular  liberty, 
the  fertile  seed-plot  of  democracy.''* 

That  religious  and  civil  liberty  have  an  organic 
connection  and  a  natural  affinity  is  quite  obvious. 
They  hold  together  as  root  and  branch.  "  By  the 
side  of  every  religion  is  to  be  found  a  political 
opinion  connected  with  it  by  affinity.  If  the  hu- 
man mind  be  left  to  follow  its  own  bent,  it  will 
regulate  the  temporal  and  spiritual  institutions  of 
society  in  a  uniform  manner,  and  man  will  en- 
deavor, if  I  may  so  speak,  to  harmonize  earth 
with  heaven."  t  But  other  influences  may  be 
powerful  enougli  to  interfere  with  this  natural  con- 
nection of  the  religious  and  political  belief.  The 
Romanist  may  choose  to  be  a  republican  rather  than 
a  monarchist,  because  of  the  greater  advantages 
which  a  republic  confers,  or  because  he  finds  him- 
self in  the  midst  of  republican  institutions  which 
he  cannot  hope  to  alter ;  but  when  a  man  is  free 
to  follow  his  own  inclinations,  he  will  body  forth 
his  religion  in  his  political  beliefs.  Hence  it 
comes  that  the  influence  on  our  republican  insti- 

'.s.  f  De  Tocqneville,  Democracy,  i.  383. 

3 


34  CALVINISM  IN  HISTORY. 

tufcions  of  a  rigid  Arminianism,  which  has  always 
been  wedded  to  an  aristocratic  form  of  church  gov- 
ernment, is  unfavorable  to  their  perpetuity.  Its 
whole  tendency,  politically,  is  to  educate  the  sen- 
timents of  the  people  to  a  spirit  of  subjection  to 
the  rich  and  powerful,  and  thus  to  prepare  them 
for  the  monarchic  form  of  civil  government. 

Charles  I.  of  England  gave  as  the  reason  why 
his  father,  James  I.,  had  subverted  the  republican 
form  of  government  of  the  Scottish  Church,  that 
the  presbyterial  and  monarchical  forms  of  govern- 
ment do  not  harmonize.*  And  De  Tocqueville, 
admitting  the  same,  calls  Calvinism  "  a  democratic 
and  republican  religion."  f  This  is  the  historical 
fact,  that,  while  Calvinism  can  live  and  do  its 
divine  work  under  any  form  of  civil  government, 
its  natural  affinities  are  not  with  a  monarchy,  but 
with  a  republic. 

This  is  the  reason  that  it  has  made  so  splendid  a 
record  in  the  history  of  human  freedom.  Where  it 
flourishes  despotism  cannot  abide.  This,  says  the 
historian  D'Aubigne,  ^^  chiefly  distinguishes  the 
Reformation  of  Calvin  from  that  of  Luther,  that 
wherever  it  was  established  it  brought  with  it  not 
only  truth,  but  liberty,  and  all  the  great  develop- 

*  Buckle,  ii.  206,  note  5.  f  Democracy,  i.  384. 


CALVINISM  AS  A  POLITICAL  FORCE.      35 

meuts  which  these  two  fertile  principles  cany  with 
them/'  * 

JSTow,  if  we  ask  what  Calvinism  did  for  the  cause 
of  civil  and  religious  liberty  in  France  and  the 
Netherlands,  we  have  but  to  turn  to  the  glowing 
pages  of  D'Aubigne  and  to  the  enchanting  his- 
tories of  our  own  Motley.  It  created,  under  God, 
the  Dutch  Republic,  and  made  it  "the  first  free 
nation  to  put  a  girdle  of  empire  around  the  world." 
Account  for  it  as  one  will,  the  fact  is,  that  until 
Calvinism  took  possession  of  the  jSTetherlanders  and 
gained  the  ascendency  over  all  other  religious  be- 
liefs, the  people  made  but  little  headway  against 
the  powerful  empire  of  Spain ;  but  from  that  mo- 
ment they  never  faltered  for  wellnigh  a  hundred 
years,  until  their  independence  was  triumphantly 
established.  Their  great  leader,  William  the  Si- 
lent, prince  of  Orange,  was,  as  it  would  appear, 
forced  logically,  consistently  and  necessarily  to 
give  up  first  his  Romanism  and  next  his  Luther- 
anism,  and  to  become  a  sincere  and  rigid  Calvin- 
ist  while  fighting  for  his  country's  independence. 
Then  it  was  that  he  began  to  exhibit  such  vigor 
and  enthusiasm  and  perseverance  as  he  had  never 
before  exhibited.     Then  it  was  that  he  beran  to 

*  History  Ref.  Time  of  Calviv,  i.  3. 


36  CALVINISM  IN  HISTORY. 

make  tliose  bleak  fiekls  of  the  North  to  be  the 
light  and  hope  of  the  Protestant  world  and  the 
terror  of  the  proud  and  powerful  Philip  of  Spain. 
"It  would  certainly  be  unjust  and  futile,"  says 
Motley,  "to  detract  from  the  vast  debt  which 
that  republic  owed  to  the  Genevan  Church.  The 
Reformation  had  entered  the  Netherlands  by  the 
"Walloon  gate  (that  is,  through  the  Calvinists).  The 
earliest  and  most  eloquent  preachers,  the  most  im- 
passioned converts,  the  sublimest  martyrs,  had 
lived,  preached,  fought,  suffered  and  died  with  the 
precepts  of  Calvin  in  their  hearts.  The  fire  which 
had  consumed  the  last  vestige  of  royal  and  sacer- 
dotal despotism  throughout  the  independent  re- 
public had  been  lighted  by  the  hands  of  Calvin- 
ists. 

"Throughout  the  blood-stained  soil  of  France, 
too,  the  men  who  were  fighting  the  same  great 
battle  as  were  the  Netherlanders  against  Philip 
II.  and  the  Inquisition,  the  valiant  cavaliers  of 
Dauphiny  and  Provence,  knelt  on  the  ground  be- 
fore the  battle,  smote  their  iron  breasts  with  their 
mailed  hands,  uttered  a  Calvinistic  prayer,  sang 
a  psalm  of  Marot,  and  then  charged  upon  Guise 
or  upon  Joyeuse  under  the  white  plume  of  the 
Bearnese.     And  it  was  on  the  Calvinistic  weavers 


CALVINISM  AS  A  POLITICAL  FORCE.       37 

and  clothiers  of  Rochelle  that  the  Great  Prince 
relied  in  the  hour  of  danger,  as  much  as  on  his 
mounted  chivalry.  In  England,  too,  the  seeds  of 
liberty,  wrapped  up  in  Calvinism  and  hoarded 
through  many  trying  years,  were  at  last  destined 
to  float  over  land  and  sea,  and  to  bear  largest 
harvests  of  temperate  freedom  for  great  common- 
wealths that  were  still  unborn/'*  To  the  Cal- 
vinists,  "more  than  to  any  other  class  of  men, 
the  political  liberties  of  Holland,  England  and 
America  are  due.^f 

Such  language  might  be  mistaken  for  a  mere 
panegyric  of  an  intense  Calvinist,  did  we  not 
know  that  it  is  the  historical  testimony  of  one 
who  was  not  a  Calvinist,  but  who,  with  the  fire 
of  freedom  burning  brightly  in  his  heart,  and 
with  a  perfect  knowledge  of  what  he  is  saying, 
pays  such  lofty  tributes  to  the  men  who  dared 
maintain  the  cause  of  liberty  in  the  earth.  This 
is  sufficient  to  indicate,  as  I  here  can  only  do, 
what  was  the  influence  and  what  the  worth  of 
Calvinism  on  the  liberties  of  France  and  the 
Netherlands. 

Now  let  us  cross  the  English  Channel  and  see 
what   Calvinism  was   as  a  political   force  on  the 

*  Netherlands,  iii.  120,  121.  f  Ibid.,  iv.  547. 


38  CALVINISM  IN  HISTORY. 

green  soil  of  England  and  on  the  heathered  hills 
of  Scotland. 

It  will  be  borne  in  mind  that  we  make  no  such 
absurd  claim  as  that  every  one  who  fought  for  re- 
ligious and  civil  liberty  in  those  days  was  a  Cal- 
vinist.  We  claim  only  that  almost  all  of  them 
were  Calvinists  and  that  their  great  leaders  were 
Calvinists.  This  is  the  historical  fact,  that  it  was 
the  CalvinLsts  who  did  the  reforming  work,  rough 
and  sore  as  it  was,  in  England,  Ireland  and  Scot- 
land. Henry  VIII.  only  transformed  the  Church ; 
he  did  not  reform  it.  The  Anglican  Church  was 
established  not  from  the  convictions  of  the  people, 
but  by  the  decree  of  the  king,  who  became  its 
supreme  pontiff.  I  would  not  care  to  say  what 
Lamartine  says  about  the  laying  of  its  founda- 
tions, lest  I  might  be  taken  as  uncharitable  toward 
a  Church  which  I  greatly  venerate,  excepting  only 
that  wherein  she  has  been  unfaithful  to  herself  and 
to  Protestantism  in  her  High-Churchism,  by  which 
she  has  given  occasion  to  Romanists  to  call  her  "a 
bulwark  against  the  aggressiveness  of  the  non-con- 
forming churches,"  and  to  plead  for  her  continu- 
ance on  that  ground.  But  all  understand  how  she 
came  into  existence — not  by  the  faith  of  the  people, 
but  by  the  will  of  the  sovereign.     Yet  no  royal 


CALVINISM  AS  A  POLITICAL  FORCE.      39 

decree  can  reform  a  Church  or  people.  Reforma- 
tion must  be  the  work  of  the  individual  conscience. 
Hence,  when  the  Anglican  Church  was  suddenly 
cut  away  from  Rome,  and  had  become,  as  it  were, 
"an  English  translation  of  the  Latin,"  the  real 
reforming  work  had  still  to  be  done.  And  who 
did  it?  Was  it  the  Arminians?  No;  they  had 
little  or  no  hand  in  it.  As  Macaulay  says,  "The 
Lambeth  Articles,"  which  were  drawn  up  by  Eliz- 
abeth's favorite  bishop  in  concert  with  the  bishop 
of  London  and  other  theologians,  "affirm  the  Cal- 
vinistic  doctrines  with  a  distinctness  which  would 
shock  many  who  in  our  age  are  reputed  Calvin- 
ists."  "Arminianism,"  he  continues,  "  with  its  more 
popular  notions,  came  in  later."  *  Through  all  the 
struggles  of  those  two  centuries  it  was  the  Calvin- 
ists  who  were  always  contending,  sometimes  badly 
and  bitterly  enough,  but  ever  honestly  and  earn- 
estly, for  the  heavenly  boon  of  human  freedom. 
It  was  they  who  reformed  Scotland,  and  lifted 
her  out  of  the  pit  of  darkness  and  misery  in 
which  she  had  been  so  long  confined. 

The  spirit  in  which  they  carried  on  the  conflict 
is  well  illustrated   in  the  case  of  Jennie  Geddes. 
Charles  I.  had  determined  to  carry  out  his  father's 
^HisLEng.,  vol.  i.  23. 


40  CALVINIS3I  IN  HISTORY. 

policy  of  compelling  the  Scotch  Church  to  adopt 
Prelacy.  The  city  of  Edinburgh  and  the  church 
of  St.  Giles  was  the  place  where  the  public  use  of 
the  Liturgy  was  to  be  commenced.  The  church 
was  crowded,  and  "  a  deep,  melancholy  calm  brooded 
over  the  congregation/'  presaging  the  fierce  tempest 
which  was  about  to  sweep  away  every  barrier.  At 
length  the  dean,  attired  in  his  surplice,  began  to  read 
the  Liturgy,  but  his  voice  was  speedily  drowned  in 
tumultuous  clamor.  An  old  woman,  Jennie  Geddes, 
was  the  heroine  of  the  occasion.  "Villain !''  she 
cried,  "dost  thou  say  mass  at  my  lug?"  and  with 
that  she  hurled  the  stool  on  which  she  had  been 
sitting  at  the  dean's  head.  Others  quickly  followed 
her  example,  and  compelled  the  dean  to  fly,  leaving 
his  surplice  behind  him.  This  was  really  the  death- 
blow  to  the  Liturgy  in  Scotland,*  and  it  exhibits 
the  earnest,  fearless  spirit  of  even  the  aged  and 
humble. 

But  the  one  man  who  was  the  principal  instru- 
ment in  the  hand  of  Providence  in  reforming 
Scotland  was  John  Knox.  He  had  learned  his 
theology  at  the  feet  of  Calvin  in  Geneva,  and  had 
known,  as  a  galley-slave,  the  tender  mercies  of 
Romanism.  He  was  one  of  the  six  clerical  Johns 
*  Dr.  Craighead's  Irish  Seeds  in  American  Soil,  p.  80. 


CALVINISM  AS  A  POLITICAL  FORCE.      41 

who  composed  the  first  General  Assembly  of  Scot- 
land. Now,  let  us  take  the  testimony  of  history  as 
to  the  worth  of  this  man.  Thus  Fronde  speaks: 
"John  Knox,  to  whose  teaching  they  (the  Scotch) 
owed  their  national  existenceJ^  .  .  .  "Such  was 
Knox,  the  greatest  of  living  Scotchmen.'^  .  .  .  "J^o 
grander  figure  can  be  found  in  the  entire  history 
of  the  Eeformation  in  this  island  than  that  of 
Knox.  Cromwell  and  Burghley  rank  beside  him 
for  the  work  which  they  effected,  but  as  politicians 
and  statesmen  they  had  to  labor  with  instruments 
with  which  they  soiled  their  hands  in  touching. 
In  purity,  in  uprightness,  in  courage,  truth  and 
stainless  honor  the  regent  Murray  and  our  English 
Latimer  were  perhaps  his  equals ;  but  Murray  was 
intellectually  far  below  him,  and  the  sphere  of 
Latimer's  influence  was  on  a  small  scale.  The 
time  has  come  when  English  history  may  do  jus- 
tice to  one  but  for  whom  the  Reformation  would 
have  been  overthrown  among  ourselves;  for  the 
spirit  which  Knox  created  saved  Scotland ;  and 
if  Scotland  had  been  Catholic  again,  neither  the 
wisdom  of  Elizabeth's  ministers,  nor  the  teaching 
of  her  bishops,  nor  her  own  chicaneries,  would 
have  preserved  England  from  revolution.  His  was 
the  voice  which  taught  the  peasant  of  the  Lothians 


42  CALVINISM  IN  HISTORY. 

that  he  was  a  free  man,  the  equal  in  the  sight  of 
God  with  the  proudest  peer  or  prelate  that  had 
trampled  on  his  forefathers.  He  was  the  one  an- 
tagonist whom  Mary  Stuart  could  not  soften  nor 
Maitland  deceive;  he  it  was  that  raised  the  poor 
Commons  of  his  country  into  a  stern  and  rugged 
people,  who  might  be  hard,  narrow,  superstitious 
and  fanatical,  but  who,  nevertheless,  were  men 
whom  neither  king,  noble  nor  priest  could  force 
again  to  submit  to  tyranny.  And  his  reward  has 
been  the  ingratitude  of  those  who  should  most 
have  done  honor  to  his  memory."* 

Now,  take  another  testimony  to  the  worth  and 
work  of  this  man — that  of  the  man  of  philosoph- 
ical literature,  Thomas  Carlyle.  Thus  he  speaks : 
"This  that  Knox  did  for  his  nation,  I  say,  we 
may  really  call  a  resurrection  as  from  death.  It 
was  not  a  smooth  business;  but  it  was  welcome 
surely,  and  cheap  at  that  price  had  it  been  far 
rougher.  On  the  whole  cheap  at  any  price; — as 
life  is.  The  people  began  to  live;  they  needed 
first  of  all  to  do  that,  at  what  cost  and  costs  so- 
ever. Scotch  literature  and  thought;  Scotch  in- 
dustry ;  James  Watt,  David  Hume,  Walter  Scott, 
Kobert  Burns, — I  find  Knox  and  the  Reformation 
*  Eno.  Hist,  X.  437. 


CALVINISM  AS  A  POLITICAL  FORCE.       43 

acting  in  the  heart's  core  of  every  one  of  these 
persons  and  phenomena.  It  seems  to  me  hard 
measure  that  this  Scottish  man,  now  after  three 
hundred  years,  should  have  to  plead  like  a  cul- 
prit before  the  world;  intrinsically  for  having 
been,  in  such  way  as  it  was  then  possible  to  be, 
the  bravest  of  all  Scotch  men.  Had  he  been  a 
poor  half-and-half,  he  could  have  crouched  into 
the  corner,  like  so  many  others ;  Scotland  had  not 
been  delivered;  and  Knox  had  been  without 
blame.  He  is  the  one  Scotchman  to  whom,  of 
all  others,  his  country  and  the  world  owe  a  debt." 
..."  Honor  to  him  !  His  works  have  not  died. 
The  letter  of  his  works  dies,  as  of  all  men's ;  but 
the  spirit  of  it  never!" 

Such  is  the  estimate  of  history  upon  Knox  and 
his  work-  after  three  hundred  years,  a  period  long 
enough  for  the  judging  of  them  correctly,  and 
long  enough  to  sink  most  men's  works  into  ob- 
livion. It  was,  however,  unfortunate  for  the 
reputation  of  Knox  with  a  certain  class  of  peo- 
ple that  he  was  compelled  by  truth  and  conscience 
and  the  welfare  of  his  nation  and  Protestantism 
to  oppose  a  woman,  young,  beautiful,  bad  and 
royal — Mary  Stuart,  queen  of  Scots;  with  whom 
to  be  a  favorite  it  was  necessary  to  be  false  to 


44  CALVINISM  IN  HISTORY. 

Scotland  and  to  the  Eeformation,  and  whose 
troublous  life  and  unfortunate  death  softened  the 
heart  of  the  world  toward  her,  blinding  many  to 
her  serious  faults. 

Other  causes  also  have  contributed  to  obscure  his 
glory  and  to  depreciate  his  real  worth  and  the  value 
of  his  services.  He  belonged  to  a  Church  which 
was  unpopular  at  court,  and  which  is  not  yet  pop- 
ular in  royal  residences.  "On  the  other  hand/' 
Buckle  says,  "  the  sect  of  Episcopalians  in  Scotland 
are  utterly  blind  to  the  real  grandeur  of  the  man, 
and  unable  to  discern  his  intense  love  of  truth  and 
the  noble  fearlessness  of  his  nature."  * 

In  addition  to  these  causes,  Knox  has  had  no 
competent  biographer.  The  bard  in  ancient  times 
was  necessary  to  the  hero's  fame;  so  is  the  histo- 
rian in  these  latter  days.  Knox's  bard  is  yet  to 
come;    and  he  will  come. 

As  to  what  the  Calvinists  did  in  Scotland  during 
those  trying  and  important  times  toward  the  close 
of  the  sixteenth  century,  we  must  content  ourselves 
with  quoting  a  few  sentences  from  Buckle's  History 
of  Oivilization  in  England :  "  In  their  pulpits,  in 
their  presbyteries,  and  in  their  general  assemblies 
they  encouraged  a  democratic  and  insubordinate 
*  History  of  Civilization,  vol.  ii.  p.  177,  note. 


CALVINIS3I  AS  A   POLITICAL  FORCE.       45 

tone,  which  eventually  produced  the  happiest  re- 
sults by  keeping  alive,  at  a  critical  moment,  the 
spirit  of  liberty."  .  .  .  "Let  us  then,  not  be  too 
rash  in  this  matter.  Let  us  not  be  too  forward 
in  censuring  the  leading  actors  in  that  great  crisis 
through  which  Scotland  passed  during  the  latter 
half  of  the  sixteenth  century.  Much  they  did 
which  excites  our  strongest  aversion.  But  one 
thing  they  achieved  which  should  make  us  honor 
their  memory  and  repute  them  benefactors  of 
their  species.  At  a  most  hazardous  moment  they 
kept  alive  the  spirit  of  national  liberty.  What 
the  nobles  and  the  Crown  had  put  in  peril,  that 
did  the  clergy  save.  By  their  care  the  dying 
spark  was  kindled  into  a  blaze.  When  the  light 
grew  dim  and  flickered  on  the  altar,  their  hands 
trimmed  the  lamp  and  fed  the  sacred  flame.  This 
is  their  real  glory,  and  on  this  they  may  well  re- 
pose. They  were  the  guardians  of  Scotch  free- 
dom, and  they  stood  to  their  post.  Where  danger 
was,  they  were  foremost.  By  their  sermons,  by 
their  conduct,  both  public  and  private,  by  the 
proceedings  of  their  assemblies,  by  their  bold  and 
frequent  attacks  upon  persons  without  regard  to 
their  rank — nay,  even  by  the  very  insolence  with 
which   they    treated    their   superiors — they  stirred 


46  CALVINISM  IN  HISTORY. 

up  the  mlncls  of  men,  woke  them  from  their 
lethargy,  formed  them  to  habits  of  discussion, 
and  excited  that  inquisitive  and  democratic  spirit 
which  is  the  only  effectual  guarantee  the  people 
can  ever  possess  against  the  tyranny  of  those  who 
are  set  over  them.  This  was  the  work  of  the 
Scotch  clergy ;  and  all  hail  to  them  who  did  it ! 
To  these  men  England  and  Scotland  owe  a  debt 
they  can  never  pay/^  * 

These,  then,  were  some  of  the  results  achieved 
by  the  Calvinists  in  that  great  and  sore  struggle 
toward  the  close  of  the  sixteenth  century.  But 
the  struggle  did  not  end  with  the  century ;  it  was 
continued  for  nearly  a  century  afterward.  When 
James  I.  of  England,  son  of  Mary  Stuart  queen 
of  Scots,  ascended  the  throne  in  1603,  the  conflict 
was  renewed  in  earnest.  Not  caring  particularly 
either  for  Episcopacy  or  Presbytery,  excepting  so 
far  as  he  could  use  them  for  the  furtherance  and 
maintenance  of  his  own  despotic  purposes,  but  be- 
lieving Episcopacy  to  be  the  natural  ally  of  the 
throne,  and  knowing  from  past  experience  that  he 
could  not  bend  the  Presbyterians  to  his  will,  he 
devoted  himself  to  the  overthrow  of  the  Presby- 
terian form  of  church  government  in  Scotland, 
*  Vol.  ii.  pp.  185,  203,  204. 


CALVINISM  AS  A  POLITICAL  FORCE.       47 

which  had  been  established  by  Parliament.  This 
arrayed  against  him  a  people  who  otherwise  would 
have  been  loyal  to  their  heart's  core  to  the  king 
who  was  their  countryman,  and  who  had  repeat- 
edly given  his  royal  assurance  that  he  would  de- 
fend the  liberties  of  his  native  land.  By  every 
power  at  his  command  he  sought  to  impose  upon 
the  Scottish  Church  a  form  of  government  which 
was  not  only  odious  to  her,  but  which  she  regarded 
as  the  shadow  and  symbol  of  Popery.  By  royal 
decree,  by  confiscation,  by  banishment,  by  a  ruth- 
less and  relentless  soldiery,  by  almost  every  cruel 
device,  he  used  his  great  power  to  carry  out  the 
dictates  of  his  imperial  will  and  to  silence  every 
voice  that  was  raised  in  defence  of  freedom  and 
against  his  arbitrary  and  tyrannical  measures. 

This  infamous  work  was  carried  on  by  his  son 
and  successor,  Charles  I.,  until  the  spirit  of  free- 
dom, so  long  and  mercilessly  trampled  upon,  arose 
in  its  flaming  wrath,  and,  led  by  Oliver  Cromwell, 
himself  a  descendant  of  the  royal  house  of  Stuart 
through  his  mother,  hurled  the  proud  monarch  from 
the  throne  and  appeased  its  vengeance  in  his  blood. 
When  Cromwell,  the  great  Calvinistic  leader  and 
commoner  and  Protector,  was  borne  to  his  grave, 
after  having  formed  the  finest  army  that  Europe 


48  CALVINISM  IN  HISTORY. 

had  ever  seen,  and  made  the  name  of  England 
terrible  to  every  nation  on  the  face  of  the  earth,* 
and  when  his  son,  without  his  father's  ability,  re- 
tired from  the  government  of  the  nation  to  which 
he  had  been  called,  preferring  the  ease  of  a  country 
gentleman  to  the  troublous  position  of  a  Lord  Pro- 
tector, the  English  people  welcomed  with  much 
enthusiasm,  and  yet  with  great  fear,  another  royal 
son  to  the  throne  in  the  person  of  Charles  IL, 
whose  name  and  reign  are  amongst  the  most  in- 
famous in  the  annals  of  English  history.  If  his 
predecessors  had  chastised  the  people  with  whips, 
he  chastised  them  with  scorpions.  Unwisely  neg- 
lecting his  father's  dying  counsel,  to  forgive  his 
enemies,  he  made  the  distress  and  cry  of  his  in- 
dependent subjects  sore  against  him.  In  this  he 
was  imitated  by  his  successor,  James  II.,  the  ab- 
ject pensioner  of  Louis  XIV.  of  France. 

During  these  reigns  the  Calvinists,  and  especially 
they  of  Scotland,  were  subjected  to  a  tyranny  so 
cruel  and  exhausting  as  might  have  crushed  out 
for  ever  the  energy  of  almost  any  people.  Corrupt 
and  ignorant  judges  sat  upon  the  bench  to  issue 
decrees  in  accordance  with  the  wish  of  the  mon- 
arch, and  miserable  slaves  of  men  pretty  largely 
*  Macaulav,  "  Essav  on  Milton." 


CALVINISM  AS  A   POLITICAL  FORCE.       49 

made  up  the  Parliaments.  England  and  Scotland 
have  seen  no  darker  days  in  all  their  history. 
History  is  compelled  to  confess,  though  she  do  it 
with  confused  face  and  profound  sorrow,  that 
amongst  the  most  zealous  aiders  and  abettors  of 
these  despotic  sovereigns  were  the  bishops  and 
clergy  of  the  Anglican  Church.  That  such  men 
as  William  Laud,  archbishop  of  Canterbury,  and 
James  Sharp,  a  renegade  Presbyterian,  archbishop 
of  St.  Andrews,  and  John  Leslie,  bishop  of  Ra- 
phoe,  Ireland,  should  have  worn  the  robes  of  ec- 
clesiastical authority,  representing  the  rule  of  our 
Lord  and  Saviour  on  the  earth,  is  enough  to  fill 
any  Christian  heart  with  grief,  and  to  cause  the 
Church  to  which  they  belonged  to  seek  to  blot  out 
her  history  for  wellnigh  a  hundred  years,  and  to 
silence,  until  the  judgment-day,  her  absurd  and 
uncharitable  claims  to  an  apostolic  succession. 
History  cannot  forget  that  many  of  the  bishops 
of  that  day  openly  favored,  and  often  suggested, 
the  atrocities  that  were  committed,  and  that  when 
constitutional  liberty  and  all  the  rights  dearest  to 
men  who  have  the  Anglo-Saxon  blood  in  their 
veins,  and  who  speak  the  English  tongue,  were 
struggling  for  an  existence  on  earth,  they  presented 
James  II.  with  an  address  in  which  they  called  him 

4 


50  CALVINISM  IN  HISTORY. 

"the  darling  of  Heaven,"  and  prayed  that  "God 
would  give  him  the  hearts  of  his  subjects-  and  the 
necks  of  his  enemies."  *  "  We  ought  never  to 
forget,"  says  an  eminent  English  writer,  "  that  the 
first  and  only  time  the  Church  of  England  has 
made  war  upon  the  Crown  was  when  the  Crown 
had  declared  its  intention  of  tolerating,  and  in 
some  degree  protecting,  the  rival  religions  of  the 
country."  f  Let  it  be  borne  in  mind,  however, 
that  many  of  the  bishops  and  archbishops  of  those 
times  were  consecrated  to  their  offices  neither  by 
God  nor  the  Church,  but  by  the  reigning  sove- 
reign. In  Ireland  alone,  among  all  the  numerous 
clergy  of  the  Church  in  the  reign  of  Charles  II., 
there  were  not  a  hundred  of  them  episcopal  ly 
ordained.J 

Who,  then,  sustained  the  cause  of  liberty  in 
those  sore  and  protracted  days?  Who  but  the 
Calvinists,  known  as  the  Puritans,  the  Covenant- 
ers, the  Koundheads,  the  Presbyterians,  the  Inde- 
pendents? When  the  people  were  abandoned  to 
the  lawless  fury  and  wrath  of  their  rulers,  when 
they    w^ere    ruthlessly    plundered,   murdered,   and 

*  Laing's  Hist,  of  Scotland,  vol.  iv.  p.  193. 

t  Buckle,  vol.  i.  p.  288. 

X  Craighead,  Scotch  and  Irish  Seeds,  p.  226. 


CALVINISM  AS  A  POLITICAL  FORCE.       51 

hunted  like  wild  beasts  from  place  to  place,  the 
Presbyterian  clergy  never  deserted  them:  for  five- 
and-eighty  years  that  clergy  never  wavered,  but 
were  always  steady  to  the  good  cause  and  always 
on  the  side  of  the  people.* 

Of  Cromwell  and  his  work  Carlyle  says :  ^'  In- 
disputably, this  too  was  a  Heroism,  and  the  soul 
of  it  remains  part  of  the  eternal  soul  of  things. 
Here,  of  our  own  land  and  lineage,  in  practical 
English  shape,  were  heroes  on  the  earth  once 
more;  who  knew  in  every  fibre,  and  with  heroic 
daring  laid  to  heart,  that  an  Almighty  justice 
does  verily  rule  this  world;  and  that  it  is  good 
to  fight  on  God's  side,  and  bad  to  fight  on  the 
devil's  side;  the  essence  of  all  heroisms  and 
verities  that  have  been  or  that  will  be.  Perhaps 
it  was  among  the  nobler,  and  noblest  human 
heroisms,  this  Puritanism  of  ours."  f 

Thrice  was  the  crown  of  England  offered  to 
Cromwell,  and  pressed  upon  him,  but  he  as  often 
refused  to  accept  it.  As  Lamartine  says,  "He 
ruled  as  a  patriot,  who  only  thought  of  the  great- 
ness and  power  of  his  country."  And  his  rule 
"  added  more  strength  and  prosperity  to  England 

*  Buckle,  ii.  261,  262. 

f  Q^omweirs  Letters,  vol.  i.  p.  8,  Edinburgh  ed. 


52  CAL  VINISM  IN  HISTOR  Y. 

than  the  nation  had  ever  experienced  under  her 
most  illustrious  monarchs."* 

If  we  ask  again,  Who  brought  the  final  great 
deliverance  to  English  liberty?  we  are  answered 
by  history,  The  illustrious  Calvinist,  William, 
prince  of  Orange,  who,  as  Macaulay  says,  found 
in  the  strong  and  sharp  logic  of  the  Geneva  school 
something  that  suited  his  intellect  and  his  temper ; 
the  keystone  of  whose  religion  was  the  doctrine  of 
predestination ;  and  who,  with  his  keen  logical  vis- 
ion, declared  that  if  he  were  to  abandon  the  doc- 
<^  trine  of  predestination  he  must  abandon  with  it 
\all  his  belief  in  a  superintending  Providence,  and 
must  become  a  mere  Epicurean. f  And  he  was 
right,  for  predestination  and  an  overruling  Provi- 
dence are  one  and  the  same  thing.  If  we  accept 
the  one,  we  are  in  consistency  bound  to  accept  the 
other. 

It  was  the  battle  of  the  Boyne  (in  Ireland,  1690) 
that  decided  the  fate  of  Protestantism,  not  only  for 
Great  Britain,  but  for  America ;  and  for  the  world 
indeed,  for  had  William  been  defeated  there,  Prot- 
estants could  not  have  found  a  safe  shelter  on  the 
face  of  the  earth.  "  Orangemen  "  may  therefore  be 
pardoned  for  their  lively  interest  in  that  battle. 
*  Lamartine's  Cromwell.  f  Hist.  Eng.,  ii.  p.  49. 


CALVINISM  AS  A  POLITICAL  FORCE.       53 

On  one  side  was  James  II.,  whom  the  poet 
Wordsworth   appropriately   calls 

"  The  vacillating  bondman  of  the  pope," 

with  an  army  composed  of  his  Eoman  Catholic 
and  sympathizing  subjects  and  allies.  On  the 
other  side  was  his  son-in-law,  William,  whom 
the  Protestants  had  called  from  Holland  to  their 
deliverance — a  little,  but  not  a  small  man;  pale 
and  sickly ;  the  world-acknowledged  representative 
of  the  reforming  cause;  with  an  army  much  in- 
ferior in  numbers  to  that  of  his  royal  father-in- 
law  and  opponent,  but  bound  together  as  one  man 
by  a  common  faith  and  a  glorious  purpose.  The 
world  has  never  seen  such  another  army.  The 
entire  Calvinistic  world  was  represented  in  it. 

Less  than  four  years  before  (October  22,  1685) 
Louis  XIV.  of  France  had  published  the  Revoca- 
tion of  the  Edict  of  Nantes,  by  which  all  the 
rights  and  privileges  of  his  Calvinistic  subjects, 
the  Huguenots,  were  swept  away.  This  drove 
thousands  upon  thousands  of  them  to  flee  from 
their  native  land  and  to  seek  safety  and  liberty 
in  other  climes.  Multitudes  of  them  had  fled  to 
AVilliam  in  Holland,  many  of  whom  were  of  the 
best  sailors  and  soldiers  of  France.      This  seems 


64  CALVINISM  IN  HISTORY. 

indeed  to  have  been  a  providence  by  which  Wil- 
liam's army  was  to  be  reinforced  and  the  great 
victory  to  be  won.  Under  him,  at  the  Boyne, 
there  were  Calvinists  from  England,  Ireland, 
Scotland,  France,  Prussia,  Finland,  Sweden  and 
Switzerland,  in  addition  to  his  own  staunch  Hol- 
landers and  two  hundred  English  negro  servants, 
as  loyal  to  Christ  and  liberty  as  any  under  the 
Orange  flag.  Hundreds  of  them  were  clad  in  the 
varied  and  worn  garments  of  private  citizens, 
which  they  had  brought  from  their  own  distant 
homes. 

The  officer  next  in  command  to  William  was 
that  splendid  military  chieftain  who,  as  command- 
er-in-chief, had  many  a  time  led  the  French  army 
to  victory — Marshal  Schomberg,  a  Huguenot  refu- 
gee, now  some  seventy  years  of  age,  and  into  whose 
care  the  devoted  wife  of  William  had  committed 
her  husband  in  his  perilous  yet  glorious  undertak- 
ing. We  can  almost  pardon  King  James  for  all 
his  follies  because  he  was  the  father  of  that  Mary, 
the  noble,  devoted,  self-sacrificing  Protestant  w^ife 
of  William,  prince  of  Orange.  Marshal  Schomberg 
it  was  w^ho,  with  his  regiment  of  refugee  country- 
men, led  the  charge.  Taking  his  position  at  their 
head,  and  pointing  with  his  sword  across  the  river 


CALVINISM  AS  A  POLITICAL  FORCE.       55 

to  the  army  of  James  strongly  intrenched  on  the 
opposite  bank,  he  uttered  the  thrilling  words,  ^^Al- 
lonSy  mes  amis!  rappelez  voire  courage  et  vos 
ressentiments  !  Voild  vos  pet^seeuteurs  T'  That  was 
enough  to  arouse  in  them  all  their  fiery  energies. 
The  memories  of  the  past,  their  faith  and  their 
fatherland,  were  the  inspirations  of  the  moment. 
With  these  words  of  their  brave  old  general  and 
countryman  ringing  in  their  hearts,  they  plunged 
into  the  river  under  a  furious  fire  from  their  ene- 
mies and,  followed  by  all  the  army,  soon  gained 
the  opposite  shore,  wading  in  water  to  the  arm- 
pits; and  wavered  not  until  James  and  his  army 
were  utterly  routed. 

On  these  two  great  leaders,  a  Hollander  and  a 
Frenchman,  to  the  everlasting  glory  of  their  coun- 
tries, the  liberties  of  the  world  were  then,  under 
God,  depending — the  one,  William,  almost  unable 
to  sit  on  his  gray  horse  from  physical  weakness 
and  loss  of  blood  from  an  arm  disabled  by  a  ball 
from  the  enemy;  the  other,  venerable  with  years 
and  honors,  who  there,  in  the  Boyne  waters,  gave 
his  precious  blood  and  noble  life  a  sacrifice  for 
the  welfare  of  mankind.  When  England  forgets 
the  part  taken  by  the  French  Huguenots  in  se- 
curing her  liberties  she  will  cover  herself  with  in- 


56  CALVIN  1831  IN  HISTORY. 

famy.  It  might  appear  as  if  the  historian  Macau- 
lay  would  have  her  forget  it;  for,  strange  to  say, 
he  passes  it  over  in  silence.  Is  it  possible  that  he 
would  carry  the  English  jealousy  of  the  French 
to  such  a  length  ?  Well  and  justly  may  Michel et 
protest  against  his  lordship's  evidently  designed 
neglect  of  his  countrymen  at  the  Boyne,  and  re- 
mind England  that  "  the  army  of  William  was 
strong  precisely  in  that  Calvinistic  element  which 
James  repudiated  in  England/'* 

We  see,  then,  what  element  fought  the  decisive 
battle  of  Protestantism  at  the  Boyne.  The  very 
watchword  of  William's  army  was  Westminster,  the 
word  which  was  before,  and  has  been  ever  since, 
stamped *on  the  symbols  of  the  Calvinistic  churches. 
Of  William  himself  it  is  no  part  of  my  plan  to 
speak.  Enough  it  will  be  here  to  quote  the  lines 
of  Wordsworth  regarding  him : 

"  Calm  as  an  under-current,  strong  to  draw 
Millions  of  waves  into  itself,  and  run. 
From  sea  to  sea,  impervious  to  the  sun 
And  ploughing  storm,  the  spirit  of  Nassau 
Swerves  not  (how  blest  if  by  religious  awe 
Swayed,  and  thereby  enabled  to  contend 
'  With  the  wide  world's  commotions) — from  its  end 

Swerves  not  diverted  by  a  casual  law. 
*  Hist.  Louis  XIV.,  p.  418. 


CALVINISM  AS  A  POLITICAL  FORCE.       57 

Had  moral  action  e'er  a  nobler  scope  ? 
The  hero  comes  to  liberate,  not  defy  ; 

And,  while  he  marches  on  with  steadfast  hope, 
Conqueror  beloved !  expected  anxiously ! 

The  vacillating  bondman  of  the  pope 
Shrinks  from  the  verdict  of  his  steadfast  eye." 

As  to  the  effect  of  William's  victory  and  reign 
as  William  III.  of  England,  "  the  most  successful 
and  the  most  splendid  recorded  in  the  history  of 
any  country,"  Macaulay  says,  "It  has  been,  of  all 
revolutions,  the  most  beneficent;  the  highest  eu- 
logy that  can  be  pronounced  upon  it  is  this,  that 
it  was  England's  besty  and  that,  for  the  author- 
ity of  law,  for  the  security  of  property,  for  the 
peace  of  our  streets,  for  the  happiness  of  our 
homes,  our  gratitude  is  due,  under  Him  who 
raises  and  pulls  down  nations  at  his  pleasure,  to 
the  Long  Parliament,  to  the  Convention  and  to 
William  of  Orange/'  *  And  David  Hume's  tes- 
timony to  the  worth  of  the  Calvinistic  Puritans 
is  equally  strong.  "So  absolute,"  he  says,  "was 
the  authority  of  the  Crown  that  the  precious 
S2)ark  of  liberty  had  been  kindled  and  was  pre- 
served by  the  Puritans  alone,  and  it  was  to  this 
sect  that  the  English  owe  the  tvhole  freedom   of 

*  Hist.  Eng.,  ii.  pp.  196,  197. 


58  CALVINISM  IN  HISTORY. 

their  constitution?^  *  And  Taine,  referring  to  the 
Calvinists  of  Great  Britain,  says :  "  These  men 
are  the  true  heroes  of  England;  they  display,  in 
high  relief,  the  original  characteristics  and  noblest 
features  of  England — practical  piety,  the  rule  of 
conscience,  manly  resolution,  indomitable  energy. 
They  founded  England,  in  spite  of  the  corruption 
of  the  Stuarts  and  the  relaxation  of  modern  man- 
ners, by  the  exercise  of  duty,  by  the  practice  of 
justice,  by  obstinate  toil,  by  .vindication  of  right, 
by  resistance  to  oppression,  by  the  conquest  of 
liberty,  by  the  repression  of  vice.  They  founded 
Scotland ;  they  founded  the  United  States ;  at  this 
day  they  are,  by  their  descendants,  founding  Aus- 
tralia and  colonizing  the  world.'^  f 
*  HisL  Eng.f  v.  134.  f  Eng.  Literature,  ii.  472. 


II. 

CALVINISM   AS  A   POLITICAL    FORCE    IN    THE 
HISTORY  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES. 

"TTTE  come  now  to  one  of  the  brightest  pages  of 
'  '  Calvinistic  history,  that  which  records  the 
political  influence  of  the  Calvinists  in  the  forma- 
tion of  the  American  nation.  I  need  not  dwell 
on  Calvinism  in  the  colonies  prior  to  the  struggle 
with  the  mother-country  for  independence.  It  is 
enough  to  bear  in  mind  that  the  Puritans,  who 
formed  the  great,  bulk  of  the  settlers  of  New 
England,  were  rigid  Calvinists,  who  had  brought 
with  them  all  their  high  principles  of  civil  lib- 
erty, and  all  their  aversion  to  the  ceremonies  and 
government  of  the  Anglican  Church,  and  all  their 
devotion  to  the  doctrines  of  the  great  Eeformers. 
Let  us  come  at  once  to  the  great  Eevolutionary 
conflict  by  which  the  colonies  became  a  free  and 
independent  nation.  My  proposition  is  this  —  a 
proposition  which  the  history  clearly  demonstrates : 
That  this  great  American  nation,  which  stretches 

69 


60  CALVINISM  IN  HISTORY 

her  vast  and  varied  territory  from  sea  to  sea,  and 
from  the  bleak  hills  of  the  North  to  the  sunny- 
plains  of  the  South,  was  the  purchase  chiefly  of 
the  Calvinists,  and  the  inheritance  which  they  be- 
queathed to  all  liberty-loving  people. 

It  would  be  almost  impossible  to  give  the  merest 
outline  of  the  influence  of  the  Calvinists  on  the 
civil  and  religious  liberties  of  this  continent  with- 
out seeming  to  be  a  mere  Calvinistic  eulogist;  for 
the  contestants  in  the  great  Revolutionary  conflict 
were,  so  far  as  religious  opinions  prevailed,  so  gen- 
<Cerally  Calvinistic  on  the  one  side  and  Arminian  on 
the  other  as  to  leave  the  glory  of  the  result  almost 
entirely  with  the  Calvinists.  They  who  are  best 
acquainted  with  the  history  will  agree  most  read- 
ily with  tlie  historian,  Merle  D'Aubign6,  when  he 
says :  "  Calvin  was  the  founder  of  the  greatest  of 
republics.  The  Pilgrims  who  left  their  country  in 
the  reign  of  James  I.,  and,  landing  on  the  barren 
soil  of  New  England,  founded  populous  and  mighty 
colonies,  were  his  sons,  his  direct  and  legitimate 
sous;  and  that  American  nation  which  we  have 
seen  growing  so  rapidly  boasts  as  its  father  the 
humble  Reformer  on  the  shores  of  Lake  Leman."  * 

There  was  no  place  on  this  continent  where  the 
*  Hist.  Bef.  in  the  Time  of  Calvin,  i.  5. 


IN  THE   UNITED  STATES.  61 

political  agitation  which  resulted  in  independence  was 
so  vigorously  kept  up  as  in  the  city  of  New  York. 
The  two  leading  parties  of  that  city,  in  wealth  and 
influence,  in  politics  and  religion,  at  that  time,  were 
the  Livingstons  and  De  Lanceys.  The  Livingstons 
were  Presbyterians,  and  consequently  flaming  re- 
publicans or  Whigs,  and  were  supported  almost 
unanimously  by  the  dissenters;  the  De  Lanceys 
were  Episcopalians,  and  staunch  loyalists,  or  To- 
ries, and  were  supported  as  unanimously  by  the 
Episcopalians.*  Hence  the  religious  beliefs  and 
difl&ences  contributed  very  largely  to  inflame  the 
spirit  of  the  opposing  parties  and  to  sustain  it 
throughout  the  conflict;  for  not  then  as  now,  it 
will  be  remembered,  did  such  liberal  and  fraternal 
sentiments  pervade  the  various  denominations.  It 
was  a  formative,  trying  period,  when  the  heat  of 
debate  and  contention  was  felt  and  exhibited  by 
all  parties. 

The  various  bodies  of  dissenters,  mainly  Calvin- 
ists,  which  had  settled  in  the  colonies,  had  been 
driven  away  from  their  fatherland,  not  by  the  perse- 
cutions of  the  Romish  Church,  but  by  the  tyranny 
of  British  sovereigns  and  the  intolerance  of  the 
Anglican  Church.  It  is  to  be  remembered  that  the 
*  Jones's  Hist.  N.  Y.,  vol.  ii.  p.  291. 


62  CALVINISM  IN  HISTORY 

settlement  of  New  England  was  the  result,  not  of 
the  contest  between  the  Reforming  opinions  and  the 
authority  of  Rome,  but,  as  Bancroft  says,  "  of  the 
implacable  differences  between  Protestant  dissenters 
and  the  established  Anglican  Church.  ...  A  young 
French  refugee  (John  Calvin)  skilled  in  theology 
and  civil  law,  in  the  duties  of  magistrates  and  in 
the  dialectics  of  religious  controversy,  entering  the 
republic  of  Geneva,  and  conforming  its  ecclesias- 
tical discipline  to  the  principles  of  republican  sim- 
plicity, established  a  party  of  which  Englishmen 
became  members  and  New  England  the  asylum."* 
The  same  radical  and  implacable  differences  which 
existed  between  the  dissenters  and  the  Episcopalians 
in  England  continued  between  them  on  this  side  of 
the  Atlantic,  and   finally  brought  them  into  open 
conflict.     The  Episcopal  Church,  being  the  estab- 
lished Church  of  the  English  nation,  having  her 
supreme  authority  vested  in  the  English  sovereign, 
claimed  the  right  to  be  the  only  Church  to  exist 
under  the  British  flag.     Hence  the  non-conformists 
could  not  find  a  place  for  the  soles  of  their  feet  on 
which  to  rest  wherever  that  Establishment  had  the 
power.     Their  only  relief  was  in  flight  from  the 
homes  of  their  childhood  and  the  graves  of  their 
*  Hist.  U.  S.,  vol.  i.  p.  266. 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES.  63 

fathers.  They  came  to  this  land  seeking,  not 
wealth  or  fame,  but  a  retreat  in  which  to  worship 
God  and  train  up  their  children  in  the  principles 
of  their  religion  without  incurring  the  wrath  of 
princes  or  bringing  upon  them  the  terrors  of 
inquisitors. 

"  Not  as  the  conqueror  comes, 
They,  the  true-hearted,  came ; 
Not  with  the  roll  of  the  stirring  drums, 
And  the  trumpet  that  sings  of  fame. 

"  Not  as  the  flying  come, 
In  silence  and  in  fear ; — 
They  shook  the  depths  of  the  desert  gloom 
With  their  hymns  of  lofty  cheer. 
*  *  -3«-  * 

"  There  were  men  with  hoary  hair 
Amidst  that  Pilgrim  band ; 
Why  had  they  come  to  wither  there, 
Away  from  their  childhood's  land  ? 

"  There  was  woman's  fearless  eye, 
Lit  by  her  deep  love's  truth  ; 
There  was  manhood's  brow  serenely  high, 
And  the  fiery  heart  of  youth. 

"  What  sought  they  thus  afar  ? 
Bright  jewels  of  the  mine  ? 
The  wealth  of  seas  ?  the  spoils  of  war? — 
They  sought  a  faith's  pure  shrine. 


64  CALVINISM  IN  HISTORY 

"Ay,  call  it  holy  ground, 

The  soil  where  first  they  trod ! 
They  have  left  unstained  what  there  they  found — 
Freedom  to  worship  God."  * 

This  they  sought,  and  this  they  left  to  all  succeed- 
ing ages,  but  this  they  hardly  found  for  themselves. 
The  land  was  too  large  and  fair  and  fruitful  to 
be  given  up  to  such  independent  and  insubordinate 
religionists.  The  great  Church  of  England  must 
be  planted  and  maintained  wherever  her  sovereign 
swayed  his  royal  sceptre.  Therefore  she  speedily 
stretched  herself  across  the  seas,  and  took  up  her 
new  abode  in  the  Pilgrims'  asylum,  with  all  her 
authority  and  all  her  claims  of  divine  rights  of 
kings  and  apostolic  succession.  Wherever  she  could 
assert  her  power  again  in  the  new  land  the  dissen- 
ters were  made  keenly  to  feel  it.  In  Virginia  and 
'New  York  the  people  were  taxed  for  her  support, 
no  matter  what  was  their  religious  belief — taxed  to 
maintain  a  hierarchy  from  which  they  had  fled,  and 
which  they  hated — taxed  without  representation  in 
either  Church  or  State.  Even  so  late  as  1707,  Fran- 
cis Makemie,  a  Presbyterian  clergyman,  was  impris- 
oned by  Lord  Cornbury  in  New  York  City  for  being 
what  the  Anglicans  called  "a  strolling  preacher,'^ 
■^  Mrs.  Hemans. 


IN  THE   UNITED  STATES.  65 

and  for  spreading  what  they  designated  "  pernicious 
doctrines/'  And  up  even  "  to  the  very  moment  of 
the  Declaration  of  Independence  the  Presbyterians 
were  denied  a  charter  of  incorporation"  in  New 
York.  Thanks,  everlasting  thanks,  to  William 
Penn !  all  religionists  were  accorded,  in  his  colony, 
equal  rights  with  those  whom  he  called  'Hhe  hot 
Church  party." 

Such,  then,  was  the  religious  feature  of  the  Rev- 
olutionary conflict ;  and  it  was  one  of  the  principal 
causes  of  the  war  for  independence.  That  war  was 
not  by  any  means  a  mere  civil  and  political  strife. 
Religion  was  at  the  very  heart's  core  of  it.  In 
1815,  John  Adams  wrote  these  significant  words: 
"  The  apprehension  of  Episcopacy  contributed,  fifty 
years  ago,  as  much  as  any  other  cause  to  arouse  the 
attention,  not  only  of  the  inquiring  mind,  but  of 
the  common  people,  and  urge  them  to  close  think- 
ing on  the  constitutional  power  of  Parliament  over 
the  colonies.  .  .  .  Passive  obedience  and  non-resist- 
ance in  the  most  unqualified  and  unlimited  sense 
were  the  principles  in  government ;  and  the  power 
of  the  Church  to  decree  rites  and  ceremonies,  and 
the  authority  of  the  Church  in  controversies  of 
faith,  were  explicitly  avowed.  ...  In  Virginia  the 
Church  of  England  was  established  by  law  in  ex~ 


66  CALVINISM  IN  HISTORY 

elusion,  and  without  toleration,  of  any  other  denom- 
ination. In  New  York  it  displayed  its  essential 
character  of  intolerance.  Large  grants  of  land  were 
made  to  it,  while  other  denominations  could  obtain 
none ;  and  even  Dr.  Rodgers's  congregation  in  New 
York,  numerous  and  respected  as  it  was,  could  never 
obtain  a  legal  title  to  a  spot  to  bury  its  dead.''  *  In 
the  same  letter  he  adduces  facts  to  prove  what  he 
terms  "  the-  bigotry,  intrigue,  intolerance  and  per- 
secution" of  the  Establishment,  and  to  confirm  his 
statement  that  the  dread  of  Episcopacy  w^as  one  of 
the  chief  causes  of  the  revolt  of  the  colonies  against 
Great  Britain.  It  might  be  difficult  to  separate 
Monarchy  and  Episcopacy  in  the  minds  of  the  dis- 
senting colonists,  for  they  regarded  them  as  twins ; 
but  to  one  who  is  acquainted  with  the  struggles  of 
the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries  it  will  be 
evident  enough  that  the  dissenters  feared  Episcopacy 
quite  as  much  as  they  feared  Monarchy,  and  that 
this  fear  was  among  the  first  and  mightiest  influ- 
ences which  led  to  the  war  against  King  George. 
In  further  confirmation  of  this  we  have  most 
excellent  and  reliable  testimony  in  the  words  of 
the  Rev.  Charles  Inglis,  rector  of  Trinity  Church, 
New  York,  during  the  Revolution.     He  says,  in  a 

*  Presbyterian  Tracts,  vol.  iv.  194. 


IN  THE   UNITED  STATES.  67 

letter  written  to  the  Episcopal  Church  Missionary 
Society  of  London,  Oct.  31,  1776:  ^^The  king's 
troops,  totally  abandoning  this  province,  reduced 
the  friends  of  government  here  to  a  most  disagree- 
able and  dangerous  situation,  especially  the  clergy, 
who  were  viewed  with  peculiar  envy  and  malignity 
by  the  disaffected ;  for  although  civil  liberty  teas,  the 
ostensible  object,  the  bait  flung  out  to  catch  the 
populace  at  large  and  engage  them  in  the  rebel- 
lion, yet  it  is  now  past  all  doubt  that  an  abolition 
of  the  Church  of  England  was  one  of  the  prin- 
cipal springs  of  the  dissenting  leaders'  conduct,  and 
hence  the  unanimity  of  dissenters  in  this  business. 
Their  universal  defection  from  government,  eman- 
cipating themselves  from  the  jurisdiction  of  Great 
Britain  and  becoming  independent,  was  a  necessary 
step  to  this  grand  object."  *  The  Revolution,  then, 
was,  according  to  this  testimony,  more  pre-eminent- 
ly religious  than  political. 

The  dissenters  had  been  driven  to  despair,  and 
could  endure  the  exactions  of  the  Establishment  no 
longer.  The  Episcopalians  were  unable  to  see  how 
the  Presbyterians  could  profess  loyalty  to  the  king 
while  at  the  same  time  fomenting  a  spirit  of  inde- 
pendence. It  seemed  indeed  a  base  hypocrisy;  and 
*  The  Presbyterian,  Dec,  1879. 


68  CALVINISM  IN  HISTORY 

it  would  have  been  so  had  it  not  been  for  the  fact 
that  it  was  religious  as  much  as  civil  liberty  for  which 
they  were  contending.  Hence  the  occasion  of  some 
of  the  first  open  outbreaks  against  the  royal  au- 
thority was  the  positive  refusal  of  dissenters  to  pay 
the  church- taxes  levied  upon  them.  This  extract 
from  one  of  the  weekly  papers  of  the  time  will 
serve  to  reveal  the  religious  feelings  engaged,  along 
with  the  political,  about  six  years  before  the  Decla- 
ration of  Independence:  "This  country  will  shortly 
become  a  great  and  flourishing  empire,  independent 
of  Great  Britain,  enjoying  its  civil  and  religious 
liberty  uncontaminated,  and  deserted  of  all  control 
from  bishops,  the  curse  of  curses,  and  from  the 
subjection  of  all  earthly  kings.  The  corner-stones 
of  this  great  structure  are  already  laid,  the  mate- 
rials are  preparing,  and  before  six  years  roll  about 
the  great,  the  noble,  the  stupendous  fabric  will  be 
erected."  *  Whatever  be  the  character  of  the  spirit 
herein  exhibited,  certainly  the  prediction  was  most 
remarkably  verified. 

The  king  and  the  bishop  stood  side  by  side  in 

the  popular  conception  of  the  times;  hence  wdien 

war  broke  forth  the  dissenting  churches  were  on 

the    side    of    independence,    and    the    Episcopal 

*  Jones,  Hist  N.  Y.,  vol.  i.  p.  24. 


m  THE   UNITED  STATES.  69 

churches  were  as  UDanimously  on  the  side  of  the 
Crown.  This  is  not,  how^ever,  so  much  to  the 
discredit  of  the  Episcopal  clergy  as  it  might  now 
appear  under  the  present  order  of  things ;  for  we 
are  not  to  forget  that  they  all,  at  that  time,  be- 
longed to  the  Church  of  England,  whose  supreme 
authority  on  earth  was  vested  in  the  reigning  sov- 
ereign, to  whom  every  clergyman  of  that  Church 
had  sworn  allegiance. 

The  Reformation  in  England,  it  will  be  remem- 
bered, unlike  that  in  other  lands,  proceeded  from 
the  sovereign,  and  not  from  the  peojile.  When 
Henry  VIII.,  in  a  fit  of  passion,  threw  oif  the  alle- 
giance to  the  pope,  he  made  himself  chief  pontiff 
of  the  Church.  This  relation  was  afterward  main- 
tained by  the  English  sovereigns.  Queen  Elizabeth, 
in  her  moral  sense  base  though  in  politics  splendid, 
assured  her  prelates  that  had  it  not  been  for  this 
great  ecclesiastical  authority  in  her  possession,  by 
which  she  could  regulate  and  change  the  religion 
at  her  will,  she  never  would  have  tolerated  Protest- 
antism.* Allow  me  here  to  quote  from  the  Act  of 
Uniformity,  by  which  such  ecclesiastical  power  w^as 
conferred  upon  the  English  monarch.  She  "may, 
by  advice  of  her  ecclesiastical  commissioners,  ordain 
*  Strype's  Hist.  Bishop  Parker,  i.  217. 


70  CALVINISiM  IN  HISTORY 

and  publish  such  ceremonies  or  rites  as  may  be 
most  for  the  advancement  of  God's  glory  and  the 
edifying  of  the  Church."  Then,  by  another  clause, 
Queen  Elizabeth  was  allowed  "  to  delegate  her  au- 
thority to  any  persons,  being  natural-born  subjects, 
lay  or  clerical,  who,  as  commissioners  of  and  for 
the  Crown,  were  empowered  to  visit,  reform,  redress, 
order,  correct  and  amend  all  such  errors,  heresies, 
schisms,  abuses,  contempts  and  enormities  whatso- 
ever which,  by  any  manner  of  spiritual  or  ecclesi- 
astical power,  authority  or  jurisdiction,  can  or  may 
lawfully  be  reformed,  ordered,  redressed,  corrected, 
restrained  or  amended."* 

This,  it  will  be  observed,  gives  the  Crown  abso- 
lute control  of  the  Church.  As  a  High- Church 
historian  has  said,  "  Xothing  can  be  more  compre- 
hensive than  the  terms  of  this  clause." f  "Who- 
ever," says  Lingard,  the  eminent  Eoman  Catholic 
historian,  "will  compare  the  powers  given  to  this 
tribunal  with  those  of  the  Inquisition  which  Philip 
11.  endeavored  to  establish  in  the  Low  Countries, 
will  find  that  the  chief  difference  between  the  two 
courts  consisted  in  their  names.^'  J 

Thus  the  liberties  of  the  Church  were  suspended 

*  Presbyterian  Tracts,  vol.  iv.  p.  19. 

t  Collier's  Ecc.  Hist,  vi.  224.  J  Hist.  Eng.,  v.  316. 


IN  THE   UNITED  STATES.  71 

on  the  will  of  the  reiguing  monarch,  and  her  clergy 
were  but  the  vicars  of  the  Crown,  which  might,  and 
sometimes  did,  suspend  them  from  the  exercise  of 
their  functions.  Henry  YIII.  by  one  stroke  of 
his  pen  at  one  time  suspended  every  prelate  io 
Eno-land,  and  restored  them  only  on  their  indi- 
vidual  petition.  And  Elizabeth  more  than  once 
threatened,  with  her  usual  vulgarity  and  profan- 
ity, to  "unfrock"  the  clergy  who  manifested  any 
opposition  to  her  will. 

It  is  not,  therefore,  surprising  that  the  dissenting 
spirit  of  independence  rebelled  against  such  an  Act 
of  Uniformity,  or  that,  their  Church  and  living  be- 
ing at  the  mercy  of  the  Crown,  the  clergy  of  the 
Establishment  were  unwilling  to  take  up  arms 
against  the  king.  This  was  the  very  thing,  how- 
ever, to  which  the  Calvinistic  non-conformists 
would  not  submit.  They  believed,  and  maintained 
with  their  blood,  that  the  sphere  of  the  Church  is 
distinct  from  that  of  the  State,  and  that  no  king 
•  or  Parliament  has  the  right  to  bind  the  human 
conscience. 

Hence,  in  the  war  for  American  independence  the 
dissenting  churches  arrayed  themselves  on  the  side 
of  the  colonies,  and  the  Anglican  Church  arrayed 
itself  on  the  side  of  the  Crown.     The  indej^endent 


72  CALVINISM  IN  HISTORY 

and  democratic  spirit  of  Calvinism,  cherished  in  the 
hearts  of  its  adherents  and  nourished  by  their  mixed 
assemblies  and  free  discussions,  rose  up  in  rebellion 
against  all  despotic  measures,  whether  of  Church  or 
State,  and  girded  itself  again  for  the  great  conflict 
on  this  Western  continent.  Montesquieu  truly  ob- 
serves that  "a  religion  which  has  no  visible  head 
is  more  agreeable  to  the  independence  of  the  climate 
than  that  which  has  one."  *  The  Calvinists,  recog- 
nizing no  visibly  supreme  head  in  the  Church,  were 
sensitive  to  all  interference  by  princes  and  men  high 
in  authority,  and  in  their  restless  spirit  were  quick 
to  defend  what  they  regarded  as  the  inalienable 
rights  of  man.  They  felt,  what  Bancroft  so  justly 
declares,* that  "  ecclesiastical  tyranny  is  of  all  kinds 
the  worst ;  its  fruits  are  cowardice,  idleness,  igno- 
rance and  poverty."  f  ^^^^  ^^^^  they  never  would 
tolerate. 

When  the  war  broke  out  the  Roman  Catholic 
population  of  the  colonies  was  not  large.  In  1759 
it  was  about  two  thousand  in  Pennsylvania  in  a 
population  of  two  hundred  thousand,  while  the 
Germans,  who  were  either  Presbyterian  or  Lutheran 
in  doctrine  and  church  government,  and  who  were 
brave    defenders    of   civil    liberty,   numbered    in 

*  Spirit  of  Laws  ii.  129.  t  ^ist-  U.  S.,  i,  289. 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES.  73 

the  same  colony  about  three-fifths  of  the  entire 
population. 

The  Baptists,  who  are  Calvinists,  were  not  strong 
in  the  colonies.  Their  first  church  in  this  country 
was  founded  by  Roger  Williams,  an  eccentric,  pious 
man.  It  was  in  1639  that  he  came  to  the  conclu- 
sion that  immersion  is  the  proper  mode  of  baptism, 
and  that  he  must  be  baptized  again  according  to 
that  method.  But  he  could  find  no  one  who  had 
been  himself  immersed  to  immerse  him ;  hence  he 
employed  a  layman,  Ezekiel  Holliman,  to  immerse 
him,  after  which  he  immersed  Holliman  and  about 
ten  others.  Thus  was  founded  the  first  Baptist 
church  in  America.  He  himself,  however,  soon 
withdrew  from  the  society,  because  he  had  come 
to  the  conclusion  that  his  action  in  thus  forming 
the  Church  had  not  been  right  or  orderly.  He 
was  a  most  intense  lover  of  civil  and  religious  lib- 
erty, and  contended  most  earnestly  for  all  human 
freedom.  Sixteen  years  before  the  Declaration  of 
Independence  the  Baptists  had  fifty-six  churches  in 
the  colonies.  They  have  always  been  in  the  first 
ranks  of  the  champions  of  civil  liberty. 

The  Independents,  or  Congregationalists,  were 
particularly  strong  in  the  Eastern  colonies.  At 
first  they  were  Presbyterian  in  their  church  gov- 


74  CALVINISM  IN  HISTORY 

ern merit,  having  elders  and  synods.  They  were, 
of  course,  Calvinists  and  rigid  republicans,  and 
their  children,  such  as  the  Adamses  and  Franklin, 
were   amongst  the  fathers  of  civil   independency. 

The  Methodists  had  hardly  a  foothold  in  the 
colonies  when  the  war  began.  In  1773  they 
claimed  about  one  hundred  and  sixty  members. 
Their  ministers  were  almost  all,  if  not  all,  from 
England,  and  were  staunch  supj^orters  of  the 
Crown  against  American  independence.  Hence, 
when  the  war  broke  out  they  were  compelled  to 
fly  from  the  country.  Their  political  views  were 
naturally  in  accord  with  those  of  their  great  lead- 
er, John  Wesley,  who  wielded  all  the  power  of  his 
eloquence  and  influence  against  the  independence 
of  the  colonies.*  He  did  not  foresee  that  independ- 
ent America  was  to  be  the  field  on  which  his  noble 
Church  was  to  reap  her  largest  harvests,  and  that 
in  that  Declaration  which  he  so  earnestly  opposed 
lay  the  security  of  the  liberties  of  his  followers. 

The  Church  of  England — for  there  was  then  no 
American  Episcopal  Church — was  specially  strong 
in  wealth  and  influence,  particularly  in  Virginia  and 
New  York.  As  she  was  the  Established  Church, 
she  held  most  of  the  civic  and  military  offices. 
*  Bancroft,  HisL  U.  S.,  vii.  261. 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES.  75 

Amongst  the  Calvinistic  churches  the  Congrega- 
tionalists  and  Dutch  Reformed  and  Presbyterians 
were  the  leaders,  and  none  of  them  took  a  more 
decided  and  active  part  in  favor  of  independence 
than  the  Scotch-Irish  Presbyterians.  Tliey  threw 
into  the  movement  all  the  fearlessness  of  the 
Scotch  and  all  the  fire  and  wit  of  the  Irish  char- 
acter. Hence  their  speeches  and  sermons  and 
papers  and  bulletins  were  at  once  irritating  and 
amusing  to  their  opponents.  Bancroft  accredits 
to  them  the  glory  of  making  the  first  bold  move 
toward  independence,  and  of  lifting  the  first  pub- 
lic voice  in  its  favor.*  To  the  Synod  of  the 
Presbyterian  Church,  convened  in  Philadelphia 
in  1775,  belongs  the  responsibility — and  may  we 
not  say  the  glory  f — of  being  the  first  religious 
body  to  declare  openly  and  publicly  for  a  separa- 
tion from  England,  and  to  counsel  and  encourage 
the  people,  who  were  then  about  taking  up  arms. 
It  enjoined  upon  its  people  to  leave  nothing  un- 
done that  could  promote  the  end  in  view,  and 
called  upon  them  to  pray  for  the  Congress  then 
assembled.f 

Of  course,  a  very  large   number  of  those  who 

*  Hist.  U.  S.,  vol.  X.  77. 

f  Scotch  and  Irish  Seeds  in  American  Soil,  p.  326. 


76  CALVINISM  IN  HISTORY 

belonged  to  the  Established  Church  engaged  most 
heartily  in  the  conflict  in  favor  of  independence, 
and  freely  gave  their  wealth  and  influence  to  secure 
it.  One  of  her  clergy,  Jacob  Duch6,  a  native  of 
Philadelphia  and  rector  of  Christ's  Church,  was 
for  a  time  chaplain  of  the  Continental  Congress. 
He  was  an  eloquent,  liberal  and  charitable  man, 
and  for  a  while  was  truly  and  earnestly  patriotic. 
Samuel  Adams,  the  "  Father  of  the  Revolutionary 
War,"  a  son  of  a  deacon  in  the  Old  South  Church, 
Boston,  nominated  Duche  for  the  chaplaincy,  say- 
ing that  he  (Adams)  "was  no  bigot,  and  could  hear 
a  player  from  a  gentleman  of  piety  and  virtue  who 
was  at  the  same  time  a  friend  to  his  country."  But 
as  the  (Conflict  deepened,  and  the  days  grew  darker, 
and  many  men's  hearts  were  failing  them,  Duche 
lost  confidence  in  the  American  cause,  and  wrote  a 
letter  to  General  Washington  in  Avhich  he  pictured 
the  hopelessness  of  resistance  and  urged  upon  him 
to  cease  his  desperate  and  ruinous  efforts.  The 
general  sent  the  letter  to  Congress,  and  Duch^  fled 
to  England.  Congress  confiscated  his  property, 
and  John  Adams  pronounced  him  to  be  "an  aj^os- 
tate  and  traitor."  In  about  ten  years  after  Duch6 
returned  to  Philadelphia,  but  never  regained  j)osi- 
tion  or  influence.     The  American  people  had  ac- 


IN  THE   UNITED  STATES.  77 

cepted  the  estimate  which  Adams  had  put  upon 
him. 

It  is  to  the  glory  of  that  Church  also — and  truly 
a  glory  it  is — that  the  great  general  who  led  the 
Continental  armies  to  victory,  the  "  Father  of  our 
country,"  was  a  member  of  her  household.  It  was 
through  the  strong  and  steady  influence,  against 
much  opposition,  of  the  two  cousins,*  Samuel  and 
John  Adams,  sons  of  pious  deacons,  and  whose 
wives  were  daughters  of  dissenting  clergymen, 
that  AYashington  was  appointed  to  the  chief  gen- 
eralship. 

And  here  let  us  note  the  happy  influence .  of 
such  women  of  the  Revolution  as  the  wives  of  the 
Adamses.  This  alone  serves  to  reveal  the  spirit  of 
Mrs.  John  Adams,  that  the  two  things  which  first 
she  taught  her  son,  John  Quincy,  in  those  stirring 
and  troublous  times  were  the  Lord's  Prayer  and 
Collinses  Ode  to  the  patriotic  warriors  of  1745 : 

"How  sleep  the  brave  who  sink  to  rest 
By  all  their  country's  wishes  blest ! 
When  Spring,  with  dewy  fingers  cold, 
Returns  to  deck  their  hallowed  mould, 
She  there  shall  dress  a  sweeter  sod 
Than  Fancy's  feet  have  ever  trod. 
"  They  were  second  cousins. 


78  CALVINISM  IN  HISTORY 

"  By  fairy  hands  their  knell  is  rung, 
By  forms  unseen  their  dirge  is  sung, 
There  Honor  comes,  a  pilgrim  gray, 
To  watch  the  turf  that  wraps  their  clay, 
And  Freedom  shall  a  while  repair 
To  dwell,  a  weeping  hermit,  there." 

You  can  hear  the  freedom-loving  spirit  of  that 
mother  speaking  through  these  lines  as  she  im- 
pressed them  upon  the  mind  of  her  little  son. 
Until  the  day  of  his  death  he  could  repeat  them 
as  easily  as  the  Lord's  Prayer.  It  was  such 
women,  behind  the  scenes,  who  were  encouraging 
the  hearts  of  the  patriotic  men  and  training  the 
sons  to  take  care  of  the  cause  of  liberty. 

It  was  these  two  great,  independent  sons  of  In- 
dependent deacons,  John  and  Samuel  Adams,  who 
placed  the  command  in  the  hands  of  him  who  was 
most  worthy  of  it,  and  who,  under  the  King  of 
nations,  led  the  colonies  to  such  a  splendid  triumph. 
Perhaps  it  was  glory  enough  for  one  Church  that 
she  could  claim  as  her  son  George  Washington,  for 
the  rector  of  Trinity  Church,  Charles  Inglis,  has 
left  it  on  record  that  all  her  clergy  in  the  New 
England  colonies  were  on  the  side  of  the  Crown. 
He  says :  "  I  have  the  pleasure  to  assure  you  that 
all  the  Society's  missionaries,  without  excepting  one, 


IN  THE   UNITED  STATES.  79 

in  New  Jersey,  New  York,  Connecticut,  and,  so 
far  as  I  can  learn,  in  the  other  New  England  col- 
onies, have  proved  themselves  faithful,  loyal  sub- 
jects in  these  trying  times,  and  have,  to  the  utmost 
of  their  power,  opposed  the  spirit  of  disaffection 
and  rebellion  which  has  involved  this  continent  in 
the  greatest  calamities.  I  must  add  that  all  the 
above  clergy  of  our  Church  in  the  above  colonies, 
though  not  in  the  Society's  service,  have  observed 
the  same  line  of  conduct ;  and  although  their  joint 
endeavors  could  not  wholly  prevent  the  rebellion, 
yet  they  checked  it  considerably  for  some  time, 
and  prevented  many  thousands  from  plunging  into 
it  who  otherwise  would  certainly  have  done  so."* 

And  in  the  same  letter,  to  show  the  contrast,  he 
says :  "  I  do  not  know  one  of  them  (the  Presbyte- 
rian clergy),  nor  have  I  been  able,  after  strict  in- 
quiry, to  hear  of  any,  who  did  not,  by  preaching 
and  every  effort  in  their  power,  promote  all  the 
measures  of  Congress,  however  extravagant." 

That,  w^e  say,  they  did ;  and  on  that  their  glory 
in  the  formation  of  this  nation  may  well  repose. 

It  has  been  made  clear — first,  that  the  fear  of 

*  Hist  Notices  of  the  Missions  of  the  Church  of  England  in  the 
North  American  Colonies,  London,  p.  328.  Quoted  by  The  Pres- 
byterian, Dec,  1879. 


80  CALVINISM  IN  HISTORY 

Episcopacy  was  one  of  the  principal  causes  of  the 
war  for  independence ;  and,  second,  that  the  Calvin- 
ists  were,  almost  to  a  man,  on  the  side  of  the  col- 
onies. It  now  remains  for  me  to  illustrate  this 
second  point,  and  show  how  the  Calvinists,  both 
from  principle  and  moral  necessity,  struggled  to 
procure  the  liberties  under  whose  benign  influence 
it  is  our  privilege  to  live. 

Montesquieu  observes  that  there  are  two  classes 
which  talk  of  religion — the  pious  and  the  atheists. 
The  one  class  speak  of  what  they  love,  and  the 
other  of  what  they  fear.*  Both  have  a  right  to 
be  heard,  for  they  are  both  in  earnest.  There  is  a 
great  middle  class  of  indifferents,  who  neither  love 
nor  feaf  religion  enough  to  talk  about  it  honestly 
and  earnestly.  These  neither  claim  a  hearing  nor 
have  a  right  to  it.  To  them  it  is  of  slight  import- 
ance whether  they  be  Calvinists  or  Arminians. 
They  are  not  interested  enough  in  religion  to  in- 
quire seriously  as  to  where  they  stand.  Neither 
cold  nor  hot,  they  are  content  to  call  the  earnestness 
of  the  pious  man  "  religious  cant,"  and  the  honesty 
of  the  atheist  a  species  of  blasphemy. 

As  it  is  better  to  be  either  cold  or  hot  than  luke- 
warm, we  are  interested  enough  in  religion,  I  hope, 

*  Spirit  of  Laws,  vol.  ii.  p.  129. 


IN  THE   UNITED  STATES.  81 

to  know  whereon  we  stand  and  the  grounds  on 
which  we  rest  our  hopes  of  eternal  life.  If  we 
truly  prize  the  blessings  of  civil  and  religious  lib- 
erty, we  cannot  be  uninterested  in  the  agencies  by 
which  they  w^ere  secured  and  the  means  by  which 
they  are  maintained.  Above  all  things,  let  us  not 
belong  to  the  army  of  religious  indifferents. 

The  Calvinists,  from  their  religious  principles 
and  by  the  free  constitution  of  their  churches,  were 
naturally  arrayed  against  monarchy  when  monarchy 
meant  despotism.  "The  Scotch  Kirk,"  says  Lecky, 
"was  by  its  constitution  essentially  republican.  .  .  . 
It  was  in  this  respect  the  very  antipodes  to  the 
Anglican  Church  and  to  the  Gallican  branch  of 
the  Catholic  Church,  both  of  which  did  all  that 
lay  in  their  power  to  consecrate  despotism  and 
strengthen  [its]  authority."  *  This  holds  good 
equally  in  regard  to  the  American  colonies  and 
in  regard  to  Great  Britain  and  the  nations  of  the 
European  continent.  The  reason  of  it  lies  in  the 
moral  necessities  of  the  case.  Any  one  acquainted 
with  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  will  agree  with 
De  Tocqueville  when  he  says:  "Catholicism  is  like 
an  absolute  monarchy."  f     It  cannot,  indeed,  logic- 

*  Hist,  of  England,  vol.  ii.  p.  46. 
t  Democracy,  vol.  i.  p.  385. 
6 


82  CALVINISM  IN  HISTORY 

ally,  be  anything  else.  Hence  it  results  that  Koman 
Catholicism  can  never  be  looked  upon  merely  as  a 
religion.  **  It  is/^  as  a  famous  English  writer  ob- 
serves,* "a  great  and  highly  organized  kingdom, 
recognizing  no  geographical  frontiers,  governed  by 
a  foreign  sovereign,  pervading  temporal  politics 
with  its  manifold  influence,  and  attracting  to  it- 
self much  of  the  enthusiasm  which  would  other- 
wise flow  in  national  channels.  Its  priests,  in  their 
intimate  correspondence  in  many  lands,  the  disci- 
plined unity  of  their  political  action,  the  almost 
absolute  authority  they  exercise  over  large  classes, 
and  their  usually  almost  complete  detachment  from 
purely  national  and  patriotic  interests,  have  often 
in  critical  times  proved  a  most  serious  political 
danger;  and  they  have  sometimes  pursued  a  tem- 
poral policy  eminently  aggressive,  sanguinary,  un- 
scrupulous and  ambitious.^'  This  has  been  seen, 
more  than  once,  in  our  own  land,  as  it  was  in 
the  denial  of  absolution  by  the  Roman  Catholic 
clergy  of  Canada  to  all  who  should  befriend  the 
cause  of  the  colonies;  while,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  republican  spirit  of  the  Presbyterians  in  ec- 
clesiastical affairs  has  always  given  shape  to  their 
political  views,  and  inclined  them  to  a  stubborn 
*  Lecky,  Hist.  Eng.,  i.  290,  291. 


IN  THE   UNITED  STATES.  83 

resistance  to  all  despotic  powers.  To  this  old 
Presbyterian,  Calvinistic  spirit  was  due  the  revolt 
of  the  American  colonies.  As  Bancroft  remarks, 
"Calvinism  saw  in  goodness  infinite  joy,  in  evil 
infinite  woe,  and,  recognizing  no  other  abiding 
distinctions,  opposed  secretly,  but  surely,  heredi- 
tary monarchy,  aristocracy  and  bondage."* 

Of  private  persons  none,  perhaps,  had  so  much 
influence  in  arousing  the  American  people  to  resist- 
ance as  three  young  lawyers,  Presbyterians,  of  New 
York  City — William  Smith,  Jr.,  William  Living- 
ston and  John  Morin  Scott.  They  were  young  men 
of  family,  education  and  fortune.  The  father  of 
Smith  (William,  Sr.)  was  regarded  as  the  leader 
and  main  support  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  in 
the  city.  These  three  young  men  had  been  edu- 
cated at  Yale  College,  which  was  at  that  time  a 
rigid  Puritan  institution,  and  "remarkable,"  as  an 
Episcopal  author  observes,  "for  its  republican 
principles  .  .  .  and  its  utter  aversion  to  bishops 
and  all  earthly  kings."  f  Being  Presbyterians, 
and  consequently  flaming  republicans,  or  Whigs, 
they  banded  themselves  together  for  the  ex- 
pressed purpose  of  gaining  the  independence  of 
the   colonies.      In   prosecution    of    this   end   they 

*  Hist.  U.  S.,  ii.  462.  f  Judge  Jones,  Hist.  N.  Y.,  i.  5. 


84  CALVINISM  IN  HISTORY 

formed,  in  concert  with  other  kindred  spirits,  in 
1752,  the  ''Whig  Ckib."  In  this  club  were  such 
men  of  learning  and  wealth  as  Peter  Van  Brugh 
Livingston,  David  Van  Home,  William  Alexander, 
Robert  R.  Livingston,  William  Peartree  Smith  and 
Dr.  John  Jones.  They  met  once  a  week,  when  re- 
publican speeches  were  made  and  republican  songs 
W'Cre  sung,  and  toasts  were  drunk  to  the  heroes  of 
Puritanism  and  republicanism,  such  as  Oliver  Crom- 
well, John  Hampden  and  General  Ludlow.  By  and 
by  the  club  issued  a  political  paper,  called  the  In- 
dependent Beflector,  and  later  another,  entitled  the 
Watch- Toive7\  By  these  and  other  means  they 
aroused  and  nourished  the  Sj^irit  of  independence, 
and  encouraged  and  strengthened  every  effort  made 
in  pursuit  of  the  desired  object. 

The  members  of  the  club  were  so  generally  Pres- 
byterians that  it  was  dubbed  the  "Presbyterian 
Junta" — a  title  given  it  in  derision  and  scorn  by 
the  Episcopal  loyalists.  It  was  this  body  which 
did  the  reforming  work  in  the  metropolis.  From 
it  went  forth  the  first  effective  call  for  a  general 
Congress,  though  such  a  call  had  been  spoken  of 
before  by  Samuel  Adams,  a  son  of  Deacon  Adams 
of  the  Old  South  Church,  Boston.  Of  this  Sam- 
uel, who  was  married  to  the  daughter  of  Rev.  Samuel 


IN  THE   UNITED  STATES.  85 

Checkley,  pastor  of  the  New  South  Church,  Boston, 
it  was  said,  "The  foe  of  tyrants  in  every  form,  the 
friend  of  Virtue  and  her  friends,  the  father  of  the 
American  Revolution." 

The  members  of  this  club,  called  also  the  "  Sons 
of  Liberty,"  sent  forth  a  petition  to  Boston  and 
Philadelphia,  and  through  Philadelphia  to  every 
colony  south,  asking  for  a  Congress  composed  of 
representatives  from  each  of  the  colonies.  This, 
says  Bancroft,  was  the  inception  of  the  Continen- 
tal Congress.*  And  in  this  attitude  of  ceaseless 
agitation  and  bold  defiance  and  restless  strugglino- 
for  independence  did  the  members  of  this  club 
stand  through  all  the  conflict,  giving  all  that  they 
held  dear  for  the  liberties  of  their  land. 

Another  important  factor  in  the  independent 
movement  was  what  is  known  as  the  "Mecklen- 
burg Declaration,"  proclaimed  by  the  Scotch-Irish 
Presbyterians  of  North  Carolina,  May  20,  1775, 
more  than  a  year  before  the  Declaration  of  Con- 
gress. It  was  the  fresh,  hearty  greeting  of  the 
Scotch-Irish  to  their  struggling  brethren  in  the 
North,  and  their  bold  challenge  to  the  power  of 
England.  They  had  been  keenly  watching  the 
progress  of  the  contest  between  the  colonies  and 
*  Hist.  U.  S.,  vol.  viii.  p.  40. 


86  CALVINISM  IN  HISTORY 

the  Crown,  and  when  they  heard  of  the  address 
presented  by  the  Congress  to  the  king,  declaring 
the  colonies  in  actual  rebellion,  they  deemed  it  time 
for  patriots  to  speak.  Accordingly,  they  called  a 
representative  body  together  in  Charlotte,  N.  C, 
which  by  unanimous  resolution  declared  the  people 
free  and  independent,  and  that  all  laws  and  com- 
missions from  the  king  were  henceforth  null  and 
void.  In  their  Declaration  were  such  resolutions 
as  these :  "  ^Ye  do  hereby  dissolve  the  political  bands 
which  have  connected  us  with  the  mother-country, 
and  hereby  absolve  ourselves  from  all  allegiance 
to  the  British  Crown."  ..."  We  hereby  declare 
ourselves  a  free  and  independent  people ;  are,  and 
of  right  ought  to  be,  a  sovereign  and  self-govern- 
ing association,  under  control  of  no  power  other 
than  that  of  our  God  and  the  general  government 
of  Congress ;  to  the  maintenance  of  which  we  sol- 
emnly pledge  to  each  other  our  mutual  co-operation 
and  our  lives,  our  fortunes  and  our  most  sacred 
honor." 

This  was  certainly  a  bold  movement,  and  none 
would  have  dared  it  but  those  who  were  ready  to 
die.  It  was  not  done  rashly.  These  men  knew 
well  what  they  were  doing  and  what  responsibilities 
they   were   assuming.      None   knew   better.     But, 


IN  THE   UNITED  STATES.  87 

rememberiDg  their  covenanting  fathers,  who  had 
signed  the  old  Covenant  in  Scotland  with  their 
blood,  and  believing  that  a  just  God  does  verily 
govern  the  affairs  of  the  w^orld,  they  laid  their 
fortunes,  lives  and  sacred  honor  on  the  altar  of 
their  country's  freedom.  That  assembly  was  com- 
posed of  twenty -seven  staunch  Calvinists,  just 
one -third  of  whom  were  ruling  elders  in  the 
Presbyterian  Church,  including  the  president  and 
secretary ;  and  one  was  a  Presbyterian  clergyman. 
The  man  who  drew  up  that  famous  and  important 
document  was  the  secretary,  Ephraim  Brevard,  a 
ruling  elder  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  and  a 
graduate  of  Princeton  College.  Bancroft  says 
of  it  that  it  was,  "  in  eifect,  a  declaration  of  in- 
dependence as  well  as  a  complete  system  of  gov- 
ernment.'^  *  It  was  sent  by  a  special  messenger  to 
the  Congress  in  Philadelphia,  and  was  published 
in  the  Cape  Fear  Mercury,  and  widely  distributed 
throughout  the  land.  Of  course  it  was  speedily 
transmitted  to  England,  where  it  became  the  cause 
of  intense  excitement. 

The  identity  of  sentiment  and  the  similarity  of 
expression  in  this  Declaration  and  the  great  Dec- 
laration written  by  Jefferson  could  not  escape  the 
*  Hist.  U.  S.,  viii.  40. 


88  CALVINISM  IN  HISTORY 

eye  of  the  historian ;  hence  Tucker,  in  his  Life  of 
JeffersoUj  says :  "  Every  one  must  be  persuaded 
that  one  of  these  papers  must  have  been  borrowed 
from  the  other/'  But  it  is  certain  that  Brevard 
could  not  have  "borrowed"  from  Jefferson,  for  he 
wrote  more  than  a  year  before  Jefferson;  hence 
Jefferson,  according  to  his  biographer,  must  have 
"  borrowed "  from  Brevard.  But  it  was  a  happy 
plagiarism,  for  which  the  world  will  freely  forgive 
him.  In  correcting  his  first  draft  of  the  Declara- 
tion it  can  be  seen,  in  at  least  a  few  places,  that 
Jefferson  has  erased  the  original  words  and  insert- 
ed those  which  are  first  found  in  the  Mecklenburg 
Declaration.  No  one  can  doubt  that  Jefferson  had 
BrevarcTs  resolutions  before  him  when  he  was  writ- 
ing his  immortal  Declaration. 

The  spirit  of  the  Mecklenburg  resolutions  was 
that  of  the  Presbyterians  throughout  the  entire 
conflict.  They  never  wavered  in  their  allegiance 
to  the  independent  cause.  They  were  always  true 
to  what  Froude  calls  "  the  creed  of  republics  in  its 
first  hard  form'' — the  memorable  reply  of  John 
Knox  to  Mary  Stuart  when  she  asked  him,  "  If  sub- 
jects, having  the  power,  may  resist  their  princes?" 
Knox  replied,  "If  princes  exceed  their  bounds, 
madam,  they  may   be  resisted   even   by   power." 


IN  THE   UNITED  STATES.  89 

They  were,  as  Bancroft  testifies,  "the  supporters 
of  religious  freedom  in  America.  They  were  true 
to  the  spirit  of  tlie  great  English  dissenter  who 
hated  all  laws  that  were  framed 

To  stretch  the  conscience,  and  to  bind 
The  native  freedom  of  the  mind.' " 

"It  was,"  he  continues,  "from  AYitherspoon  of  New 
Jersey  that  Madison  imbibed  the  lesson  of  perfect 
freedom  in  matters  of  conscience.  When  the  con- 
stitution of  New  Jersey  was  formed  by  a  convention 
composed  chiefly  of  Presbyterians,  they  established 
perfect  liberty  of  conscience  without  the  blemish  of 
a  test/' * 

Out  of  that  Presbyterian  constitution  has  come 
the  famous  "Jersey  justice,"  the  extension  of  which 
over  all  the  land  would  be  an  unspeakable  bless- 
ing. The  Kev.  Dr.  John  Witherspoon,  a  native 
of  Scotland  and  a  lineal  descendant  of  John 
Knox,  was,  in  the  Revolutionary  time,  president 
of  Princeton  College,  and  was  the  only  clerical 
member  of  the  Revolutionary  Congress.  He,  as 
might  be  expected,  earnestly  and  eloquently  sup- 
ported every  measure  adopted  by  Congress  for  se- 
curing independence.  When  the  important  moment 
*  Hist.  U.  S.,  ix.  278,  279. 


90  CAL  VINISM  IN  HISTOR  Y 

came  for  signing  the  Declaration,  and  some  of  the 
members  were  hesitating  to  affix  their  names  to  it, 
he  delivered  an  eloquent  appeal,  in  which  he  said : 
"That  noble  instrument  upon  your  table,  which 
ensures  immortality  to  its  author,  should  be  sub- 
scribed this  very  morning  by  every  pen  in  the 
house.  He  that  will  not  respond  to  its  accents, 
and  strain  every  nerve  to  carry  into  effect  its  pro- 
visions, is  unworthy  the  name  of  a  freeman.  For 
my  own  part,  of  property  I  have  some,  of  reputa- 
tion more.  That  reputation  is  staked,  that  prop- 
erty is  pledged,  on  the  issue  of  this  contest.  And 
although  these  gray  hairs*  must  soon  descend  into 
the  sepulchre,  I  would  infinitely  rather  they  should 
descend  thither  by  the  hands  of  the  public  execu- 
tioner than  desert  at  this  crisis  the  sacred  cause  of 
my  country."  f  -^^1  honor  to  him  and  to  the  Church 
and  the  principles  which  he  so  eloquently  repre- 
sented !  That  Church  may  w^ell  be  proud  of  hav- 
ing her  clergy  so  honorably  represented  among  the 
signers  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence. 

"Witherspoon  remained  in  the  Congress,  excepting 
for  a  short  period,  till  1782,  and  contributed  perhaps 
as  largely  as  any  one  member  to  the  patriotic  cause. 

*  He  was  then  in  the  fifty-fourth  year  of  his  age. 
t  Scotch  and  Irish  Seed  in  Amei'ican  Soily  p.  334. 


IN  THE   UNITED  STATES.  91 

He  was  chairman  of  the  committee  to  receive  and 
consult  with  Baron  Steuben,  who  had  come  to 
America  to  offer  his  services  to  the  patriots,  and 
he  was  the  only  one  who  could  converse  with  the 
baron.*  They  conversed  in  French.  The  Con- 
gress was  then  sitting  at  York,  Pennsylvania. 

None  of  the  colonies  was  more  enthusiastic  and 
self-sacrificing  on  behalf  of  independence  than  New 
Jersey,  or  Nova  Cciesarea,  the  one  represented  by 
Witherspoon  and  the  one  so  full  of  "Blue-stock- 
ing "  Presbyterians.  It  was  to  it  that  the  patriots 
fled  for  refuge  from  New  York  on  the  entrance  of 
Howe's  army  into  that  city.  It  was  amongst  its 
True  Blues  that  the  scattered  and  discouraged  forces 
of  Washington  found,  again  and  again,  recruits  and 
provisions  and  shelter  and  encouragement.  A  Tory 
historian  says  that  "not  a  stick  of  wood,  a  spear  of 
grass  or  a  kernel  of  corn  could  the  British  troops 
get  in  New  Jersey  without  fighting  for  it."  f  Her 
people  had  caught  the  spirit  of  her  eminent  repre- 
sentatives in  Congress  and  of  her  republican  college 
at  Princeton,  where  so  many  of  the  chief  actors  in 
the  Revolution  had  been  educated,  and  hence  they 
stood  united  and  firm  and  enthusiastic  through  all 
the  conflict. 

*  Sparks's  Lives :  "  Steuben."        f  Jones,  Hist.  N.  Y.,  i.  171. 


92  CALVINISM  IN  HISTORY 

Another  important  man  in  the  cause  of  inde- 
pendence was  the  Rev.  John  Rodgers,  the  leading 
Presbyterian  clergyman  in  New  York  City,  and 
the  first  moderator  of  the  General  Assembly  of  the 
Presbyterian  Church  in  America.  He  and  John 
Mason,  pastor  of  the  Seceder  Church,  and  Liv- 
ingston of  the  Dutch  Church,  and  Laidley  of  the 
English-Dutch  Church,  were  among  the  patriotic 
leaders  in  that  city.  Rodgers  was  born  in  Boston, 
of  parents  who  had  emigrated  from  Londonderry, 
Ireland,  and  his  church  in  New  York  was  large 
and  wealthy  and  influential.  He  had  to  fly  from 
the  city  on  the  entrance  of  the  British  troops,  who 
seized  his  church  and  turned  it  into  a  hospital. 
Congress  acknowledged  his  patriotism  and  ability 
by  employing  him  on  an  important  mission  to  the 
South.  He  was  chaplain  in  the  army,  and  after- 
ward chaplain  of  the  State  convention  of  New 
York.  He  threw  all  his  eloquence,  influence  and 
possessions  upon  the  side  of  the  good  cause,  and 
did  more  perhaps,  in  the  beginning,  to  arouse  the 
people  than  any  other  clergyman. 

The  following  incident  serves  to  reveal  the  polit-' 
ical  sentiment  and  movement  of  the  clergy  of  New 
York  City.  It  is  given  by  an  eye-witness  and  a 
prominent  member  of  the  Anglican  Church.    When 


IN  THE   UNITED  STATES.  93 

Generals  Washington,   Charles   Lee  and  Schuyler 
were  on  their  way  to  assume  command  of  their 
respective  armies,  in  1775 — Washington  and  Lee 
going  to  Boston,  and   Schuyler   to  Albany — they 
arrived  in  New  York  on  a  Sabbath  morning  in 
the   month   of   June.     And   by  whom  were   they 
met  and  welcomed  to  the  city  ?     By  the  volunteer 
companies,  the   members  of  the  Provincial  Con- 
gress  of    New  York,  the   members   of  the   City 
Committee    and    the    pastors    of    the    dissenting 
churches.      Washington   and   Lee   were   members 
of  the  Episcopal   Church,    but   there   was   not   a 
clergyman  of  their  Church  to  bid  them  welcome. 
These   others,  the  Calvinists,  met  them,  and  con- 
ducted  Washington  to  the   house  of  a  Calvinist, 
Mr.  Lispenard,  where  he  and  his  staff  were  boun- 
tifully entertained.     But  on  that  same  day  and  in 
that  same  city  another  high  officer  arrived — Gen- 
eral  Tryon,  the   king's   governor   of  the   colony. 
And  by  whom  was  he  met  and  welcomed?     By 
all  the  king's  officers  and  scores  of  his  loyal  sub- 
jects, prominent  amongst  whom  Avere  the  clergy 
of  the   Episcopal  Church.     Nothing   could   more 
clearly  mark  the  difference  in  political  sentiment 
of  these   different  clergymen  and   their  churches. 
From  that  time  Washington  was  about  as  much 


94  CALVINISM  IN  HISTORY 

of  a  Presbyterian  as  an  Episcopalian.  When  after- 
ward he  was  commander  in  New  York  he  made 
his  head-quarters  with  William  Smith,  a  prominent 
Presbyterian.  He  himself  attended,  and  ordered 
all  his  men  to  attend,  the  services  of  his  chaplains, 
who  were  dissenting  clergymen ;  and  he  elsewhere 
attended  the  dissenters'  service  and  communed 
with  them.  He  gave  forty  thousand  dollars  in 
bonds  to  establish  a  Presbyterian  college  in  his 
native  State,  which  took  his  name  in  honor  of  his 
munificent  gift,  becoming  Washington  College. 

Thus  I  might  trace  through  all  that  severe  conflict 
the  spirit  of  the  Calvinists,  and  find  it  alw^ays  the 
same — true  to  the  cause  of  independence;  indeed, 
the  only  unswerving  champion  of  it.  This  is  no 
more  than  prominent  men,  historians  and  clergy- 
men on  the  other  side  have  said.  I  could  not  em- 
ploy language  more  definite  and  pointed  than  that 
of  the  Rev.  Dr.  Chandler,  a  clergyman  of  the 
Episcopal  Church  and  a  man  of  ability  and  note, 
when,  in  his  plea  for  an  American  episcopate  as 
distinct  and  different  from  the  English,  he  said : 
"  Republican  principles  cannot  flourish  in  an  Epis- 
copal Church."  EveryW'here  during  all  that  con- 
flict it  was  the  Calvinists  chiefly  who  were  fighting 
for  religious  and  civil  liberty.     Hence,  when  the 


IN  THE   UNITED  STATES.  95 

bill  of  attainder  was  made  out  in  New  York 
against  those  who  had  been  conspicuous  in  their 
efforts  to  defeat  the  colonies,  there  was  not  a  dis- 
senter's name  found  in  it.* 

But  the  influence  of  the  free  spirit  of  Calvinism 
in  favor  of  the  liberties  of  the  colonies  was  not 
confined  to  the  American  continent ;  it  was  work- 
ing heroically  on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic. 
Two  great  Scotchmen,  David  Hume  and  Adam 
Smith,  were  everywhere  proclaiming  it  in  their 
own  effective  way,  and  compelling  men  to  hear  it. 
In  the  House  of  Commons  also  it  was  boldly  and 
eloquently  upheld  by  Erin's  gifted  son,  Edmund 
Burke,  as  well  as  by  Charles  James  Fox,  of  whom 
Dr.  Johnson  said,  "  Here  is  a  man  who  has  divided 
a  kingdom  with  Csesar,  so  that  it  was  a  doubt  which 
the  nation  should  be  ruled  by,  the  sceptre  of  George 
III.  or  the  tongue  of  Mr.  Fox.''  The  memory  of 
such  champions  of  American  liberty  at  the  English 
court  should  be  held  for  ever  dear  by  the  Ameri- 
can people,  for  had  it  not  been  for  such  men,  it 
is  doubtful  if  the  colonies  could  have  succeeded. 
These  great  men  felt  that  America's  cause  was  the 
cause  of  liberty,  and  that,  as  Burke  said,  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  king's  and  the  Church's  power  in 
*  Jones,  Hist.  N.  Y.,  in  loco. 


96  CALVINISM  IN  HISTORY 

America  would  become  an  apt,  powerful  and  cer- 
tain engine  for  the  destruction  of  freedom  in  Eng- 
land.* 

The  Calvin istic  philosophy  had  also  taken  a  firm 
hold  of  the  popular  mind  in  Germany,  where  Kant, 
imbued  with  its  liberty-loving  spirit,  was  loosening 
the  foundations  of  despotism  and  suffering  persecu- 
tion for  his  valiant  defence  of  the  American  cause. 
France,  too,  was  all  aglow  with  the  free,  bounding, 
restless  spirit  of  Calvinism — where  Rousseau,  in 
spite  of  the  immorality  of  his  life  and  the  crudity 
of  his  theories,  was  conducting,  through  his  polit- 
ical science,  the  same  political  warfare  as  that  in 
America.  His  influence  in  advocating  the  rights 
of  man  contributed  very  largely  to  the  forming 
of  the  alliance  between  France  and  the  colonies, 
and  to  the  unfurling  of  the  royal  standard  along- 
side of  the  blue  flag  of  the  Covenanters,  hoisted 
again  in  a  new  form  over  the  American  continent. 
It  was  Calvinistic  France  and  Calvinistic  America 
that  were  going  forth  in  loving  unity  to  fight  on 
Western  soil  for  the  cause  of  human  freedom.  As 
our  great  historian  observes,  "Anti-prelatical  Puri- 
tanism was  embraced  by  anti-prelatical  skepticism. 
The  exile  Calvin  was  welcomed  home  as  he  return- 
*  Buckle,  1.345. 


IN  THE    UNITED  STATES.  97 

ed  by  the  way  of  JSTew  England  and  the  States 
where  the  Huguenots  and  Presbyterians  prevailed. 
.  .  .  One  great  current  of  vigorous  living  opinion, 
which  there  was  no  power  in  France  capable  of 
resisting,  swept  through  society,  driving  all  the 
clouds  in  the  sky  in  one  direction.  Ministers  and 
the  king  and  the  nation  were  hurried  along  to- 
gether." * 

Thus  Calvinism  in  Europe  and  Calvinism  in 
America  were  leagued  together  for  the  promotion 
of  the  one  great  purpose.  Their  several  currents, 
civil  and  spiritual,  philosophical  and  religious,  had 
run  together,  and  were  sweeping  on  in  one  great 
stream,  bearing  the  colonies  on  to  liberty.  Out 
of  Calvinistic  Protestantism  had  arisen  the  great 
leaders  who  had  issued  their  rousing  calls  to  the 
nations  for  deliverance  from  mental  and  political 
bondage,  and  had  combined  their  forces  for  secur- 
ing the  one  great  object.  Eousseau  had  inflamed 
the  youthful  spirit  of  France  with  an  intense  de- 
sire for  republican  simplicity,  and  Edwards  had 
summed  up  the  political  history  of  America  when 
he  gave  Calvinism  its  political  enthusia  by  declar- 
ing virtue  to  consist  in  universal  love. 

Thus,  it  was  the  Calvinists  and  their  sons,  at 
*  Bancroft,  Hist.  U.  S.,  ix.. 501-503. 


^S  CALVINISM  IN  HISTORY 

home  and  abroad,  the  Huguenots  and  Puritans 
and  Independents  and  Presbyterians,  who  were 
banded  and  marshaled  together  in  the  eighteenth 
century  for  the  laudable  purpose  of  rescuing  the 
liberties  of  men  from  the  deadly  grasp  of  a  me- 
diaeval political  Arminianism. 

Understanding,  then,  the  history  of  the  times 
referred  to,  we  are  not  surprised  to  hear  men  say, 
as  Ranke,  that  "John  Calvin  was  virtually  the 
founder  of  America,''  or  as  Rufus  Choate:  "In 
the  reign  of  Mary  [of  England]  a  thousand  learn- 
ed artisans  fled  from  the  stake  at  home  to  the  hap- 
pier states  of  continental  Protestantism.  Of  these, 
great  numbers — I  know  not  how  many — came  to 
Genevan  ...  I  ascribe  to  that  five  years  in  Geneva 
an  influence  which  has  changed  the  history  of  the 
world.  I  seem  to  myself  to  trace  to  it,  as  an  influ- 
ence on  the  English  character,  a  new  theology,  new 
politics,  another  tone  of  character,  the  opening  of 
another  era  of  time  and  liberty.  I  seem  to  myself 
to  trace  to  it  the  great  civil  war  in  i^ngland,  the 
republican  constitution  framed  in  the  cabin  of  the 
Mayflower,  the  divinity  [theology]  of  Jonathan 
Edwards,  the  battle  of  Bunker  Hill,  the  independ- 
ence of  America.'' 

Similar  also  is  the  testimony  of  Castelar,  the  elo- 


IN  THE   UNITED  STATES.  99 

quent  Spanish  statesman.  He  says  :  "  The  children 
of  the  Puritans  founded  the  United  States,  a  liberal 
and  popular  government,  where  human  rights  were 
placed  above  all  ideas.  .  .  .  They  harmonized  an- 
tagonisms which  seemed  eternal — stability  with 
progress,  order  with  liberty,  pure  democracy  with 
obedience  to  the  law,  the  widest  freedom  of  differ- 
ent social  tendencies  with  a  powerful  nationality 
and  ardent  patriotism,  the  humanitarian  with  the 
cosmopolite  spirit,  indomitable  independence  of  the 
individual  with  religious  respect  to  authority.  .  .  . 
The  Anglo-Saxon  democracy  is  the  product  of  a 
severe  theology  learned  by  the  few  Christian  fugi- 
tives in  the  gloomy  cities  of  Holland  and  of  Switz- 
erland, where  the  morose  shade  of  Calvin  still 
wanders.  .  .  .  And  it  remains  serenely  in  its 
grandeur,  forming  the  most  dignified,  most  moral, 
most  enlightened  and  richest  portion  of  the  human 
race."  * 

So  also  Bancroft :  "  He  that  will  not  honor  the 
memory  and  respect  the  influence  of  Calvin  knows 
but  little  of  the  origin  of  American  independence.'' 
..."  The  light  of  his  genius  shattered  the  mask 
of  darkness  which  Superstition  had  held  for  cen- 
turies before  the  brow  of  Religion." 
*  Harper's  Magazine,  July,  1872. 


100  CALVINISM  IN  HISTORY 

So  also  the  Rev.  Henry  Ward  Beecher :  ^'  It  has 
ever  been  a  mystery  to  the  so-called  liberals  that 
the  Calvinists,  with  what  they  have  considered 
their  harshly  despotic  and  rigid  views  and  doc- 
trineS;,  should  always  have  been  the  staunchest 
and  bravest  defenders  of  freedom.  The  working 
for  liberty  of  these  severe  principles  in  the  minds 
of  those  that  adopted  them  has  been  a  puzzle. 
But  the  truth  lies  here :  Calvinism  has  done  what 
no  other  religion  has  ever  been  able  to  do.  It 
presents  the  highest  human  ideal  to  the  world, 
and  sweeps  the  whole  road  to  destruction  with 
the  most  appalling  battery  that  can  be  imagined. 

"It  intensifies,  beyond  all  example,  the  individ- 
uality of  man,  and  shows  in  a  clear  and  overpow- 
ering light  his  responsibility  to  God  and  his  re- 
lations to  eternity.  It  points  out  man  as  entering 
life  under  the  weight  of  a  tremendous  responsibil- 
ity, having,  on  his  march  toward  the  grave,  this 
one  sole  solace — of  securing  heaven  and  of  escap- 
ing hell. 

"  Thus  the  Calvinist  sees  man  pressed,  burdened, 
urged  on,  by  the  most  mighty  influencing  forces. 
He  is  on  the  march  for  eternity,  and  is  soon  to 
stand  crowned  in  heaven  or  to  lie  sweltering  in 
hell,  thus   to  continue   for  ever  and  ever.     Who 


IN  THE   UNITED  STATES.  101 

shall  dare  to  fetter  such  a  being  ?  Get  out  of  his 
way !  Hinder  him  not,  or  do  it  at  the  peril  of 
your  own  soul.  Leave  him  /ree  to  find  his  way 
to  God.  Meddle  not  with  him  or  with  his  rights. 
Let  him  work  out  his  salvation  as  he  can.  No 
hand  must  be  laid  crushingly  upon  a  creature  who 
is  on  such  a  race  as  this — a  race  whose  end  is  to 
be  eternal  glory  or  unutterable  woe  for  ever  and 
ever."  * 

I  have  thus  traced  for  you,  as  briefly  and  accu- 
rately as  the  circumstances  would  permit,  the  work- 
ings of  this  great  Calvinistic  system  of  religion  for 
the  liberties  of  men  ;  and  it  now  only  remains  for 
me  to  remind  you,  and  urge  you  to  engrave  it 
upon  your  heart,  that  on  your  religion  ever  depends 
your  freedom  or  your  bondage.  It  is  a  matter  of 
supreme  importance  what  doctrines  you  believe, 
what  principles  you  adopt.  On  these  you  must 
erect  the  wliole  superstructure  of  your  life  for  this 
world  and  for  the  world  which  is  to  come.  By 
these  arise  or  fall,  live  or  die,  the  governments  of 
kingdoms  and  the  privileges  of  citizens.  If  this 
grand  republic  shall  ever  become  a  despotism  by 
any  combination  of  centralized  power,  certain  it  is 
that  it  will  not  be  by  the  spirit  of  Calvinism,  or 
*  Plymouth  Pulpit,  art.  "  Calvinism." 


102  CALVINISM  IN  HISTORY. 

with  the  permission  of  the  spiritual  sons  of  those 
Avho  gave  it  birth  and  cradled  it  in  suifering  and 
nourished  it  into  maturity  with  their  blood.  With 
the  history  of  the  fathers  before  you,  with  a  hell 
to  be  shunned  and  a  heaven  to  be  secured,  you 
cannot  be  in  doubt  as  to  what  principles  you  ought 
to  adopt  and  what  Lord  and  Master  you  ought  to 
serve.  Take  these  thoughtful  lines  of  Wordsworth 
and  weave  them  into  the  very  framework  of  your 
being : 

"  Ungrateful  country,  if  thou  e'er  forget 

The  sons  who  for  thy  civil  rights  liave  bled ! 
How,  like  a  Roman,  Sidney  bowed  his  head. 

And  Eussel's  milder  blood  the  scaffold  wet ! 

Biit  these  had  fallen  for  profitless  regret 

Had  not  thy  holy  Church  her  champions  bred, 
And  claims  from  other  worlds  inspirited 

The  star  of  Liberty  to  rise.     Nor  yet 

(Grave  this  within  thy  heart),  if  spiritual  things 
Be  lost  through  apathy,  or  scorn,  or  fear, 

Shalt  thou  thy  humbler  franchises  support, 
However  hardly  won  or  justly  dear : 

AVhat  came  from  heaven  to  heaven  by  nature  clings, 

And  if  dissevered  thence,  its  course  is  short." 


.  III. 

CALVINISM  AS  A  MORAL  FORCE. 

T  COME  now  to  consider  the  very  important 
question  of  the  moral  influence  of  Calvinism. 
Bearing  in  mind  the  law  set  forth  in  the  Saviour^s 
saying,  "By  their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them/^  we 
are  to  inquire  as  to  the  merits  of  Calvinism  re- 
specting the  morals  of  its  adherents. 

In  doing  this  we  might  rest  the  claims  of  Cal- 
vinism to  a  high  standard  of  morality  on  a  com- 
parison between  the  morals  of  Roman  Catholics — 
among  whom  Armiuianism  is  carried  out  to  its 
logical  results* — and  the  morals  of  any  denomi- 
nation of  Calvinists,  the  Huguenots,  for  example, 
or  the  Puritans,  or  Independents,  or  Presbyterians. 
Take  any  of  these  classes  of  Calvinistic  believers, 
and  it  will  be  found  that  they  are  as  eminent  in 

*  Of  course  we  do  not  mean  to  say  that  the  Arminianism  of 
the  Eomanist  Church  is  responsible  for  the  immoralities  of 
that  Church :  we  mean  simply  to  contrast  the  morals  of  the 
most  thorough  Arminians  with  the  morals  of  the  most  thor- 
ough Calvinists. 

103 


104  CALVINISM  IN  HISTORY. 

virtue  as  the  Romanists  are  conspicuous  in  vice. 
The  Roman  clergy  are  forward  to  attribute  the 
prevailing  crimes  of  modern  society  to  the  Protest- 
ant religion,  but  it  needs  only  a  glance  at  the  facts 
to  dispel  the  illusion  which  they  would  have  men 
believe.  And  while  they  are  thus  pleased  to  charge 
upon  the  Protestants  the  sins  to  which  they  and 
their  followers  are  most  habitually  addicted,  they 
would,  I  believe,  shrink  from  a  strict  comparison 
of  the  morals  of  any  portion  of  their  people  with 
the  morals  of  any  portion  of  the  Calvinists. 

But  Calvinism  has  had  to  meet  not  only  the 
accusations  of  Roman  Arminianism,  but  the  alle- 
gations of  many  who  claim  for  themselves  the  title 
of  Protestant.  There  are  to  be  found  amongst  Prot- 
estants those  who  look  upon  Calvinism  as  unfavor- 
able to  a  sound  morality,  and  who  allege  against  it 
that  it  is  a  system  of  intellectual  servitude,  paralyz- 
ing to  the  moral  and  spiritual  nature. 

The  eminent  Dr.  Channing  employed  all  his 
ingenuity  in  "the  moral  argument"  against  Cal- 
vinism, and  labored,  not  without  some  success,  to 
make  Calvinism  odious  and  abhorrent.  He  says, 
in  the  height  of  his  misinformed  zeal,  that  it  "out- 
rages conscience  and  reason,"  and  that  it  "  owes  its 
perpetuity  to  the  influence  of  fear  in  palsying  the 


CALVINISM  AS  A  MORAL  FORCE.         105 

moral  nature."  It  might,  perhaps,  be  difficult  to 
account  for  such  statements  from  one  who  was  him- 
self "  the  pupil  of  New-England  Christianity,  the 
consummate  flower  of  the  old  Puritanism,  in  his 
youth  ;"  who  was  decided  to  a  religious  life  through 
the  influence  of  Jonathan  Edwards  and  his  Calvin- 
istic  uncle,  the  Rev.  Henry  Channing,  and  tlie 
great  Calvinistic  revival  which  swept  over  New 
England  when  he  was  as  yet  a  young  man ;  and 
who,  as  the  Rev.  Joseph  Cook  observes,  ^^  showed 
throughout  life  some  touches  from  the  fingers  of 
the  prophet  of  Geneva,''  and  "  whose  glorious  as- 
piration for  moral  greatness,  which  made  him  a 
reformer  in  things  both  secular  and  religious,  was 
but  the  flowering  out  of  some  of  the  stern  docti^ines 
of  Puritanism."*  It  abates  materially,  however, 
the  force  of  Channing's  statements  to  know^  that 
in  the  later  and  riper  years  of  his  life  his  religious 
view\s  changed  considerably,  and  that  the  religious 
system  w^ith  which  he  endeavored  to  replace  the 
Puritanism  of  his  fathers  has  almost  passed  away  as 
a  living  power,  having  been  found  "  as  inadequate 
to  span  the  river  of  sin  as  a  fishing-rod  is  to  bridge 
the  Mississippi."  t     If  there  is  one  characteristic  of 

*  Lectures :  Miracles,  Prophecy  and  Inspiration,  Prelude,  March 
8,  1880.  t  Cook,  Independent,  Marcli  18,  1880. 


lOjl  CALVINIS3I  IN  HISTORY. 

Calvinlstic  morality  more  prominent  than  another, 
it  is  its  conscience.  John  Quincy  Adams,  a  dis- 
ciple of  Channing,  has  called  the  Puritan  colony 
of  New  England  '^a  colony  of  conscience;"  and 
Taine  remarks  that  with  the  Calvinists  "  conscience 
only  spoke.'^  * 

The  two  great  springs  by  which  men  are  moved 
are  sentiment  and  idea,  feeling  and  conviction ;  as 
these  control,  so  the  moral  character  will  be 
shaped.  The  man  of  sentiment,  of  feeling,  is  the 
man  of  instability ;  the  man  of  idea,  of  conviction, 
is  the  man  of  stability ;  he  cannot  be  changed  until 
his  conscience  first  be  changed.  Now,  the  appeal 
of  Arminianism  is  chiefly  to  the  sentiments.  Re- 
garding man  as  having  the  absolutely  free  moral 
y'  control  of  himself,  and  as  able  at  any  moment  to 
determine  his  own  eternal  state,  it  naturally  applies 
itself  to  the  arousing  of  his  emotions.  Whatever 
can  lawfully  awaken  the  feelings  it  considers  expe- 
dient. Accordingly,  the  senses,  above  all  things, 
must  be  addressed  and  affected.  Hence,  the  Ar- 
minian  is,  religiously,  a  man  of  feeling,  of  senti- 
ment, and  consequently  disposed  to  all  those  things 
which  interest  the  eye  and  please  the  ear.  His 
morality,  therefore,  as  depending  chiefly  upon  the 
*  Taine's  Encj.  Literature,  i.  388. 


\ 


CALVINISM  AS  A   MORAL  FORCE.      M^7 

emotions,  is,  in   the  nature  of  the  case,   liable  to 
frequent   fluctuation,    rising    or   falling   with    the 
wave  of  sensation  upon  which  it  rides.     Calvin- 
ism, on  the  other  hand,  is  a  system  which  appeals 
to  idea  rather  than  sentiment,  to  conscience  rather 
than  emotion.     In  its  view  all  things  are  under  a 
great  and   perfect   system  of   divine  laws,   which 
operate  in  defiance  of  feeling,  and  wliich  must  be 
obeyed  at  the  peril   of  the  soul.     Eegarding  the 
sinner  as  unable  of  himself  even  to  exercise  faith 
unto  salvation,  it  throws  him  not  upon  his  feelings, 
but   upon    his   convictions,   and   turns   him   away 
from  man  and  all  human  efforts  to  the  God  who 
made  him.      ^^  Its  grand  principle  is  the  contem- 
plation of  the  universe  iii  God  revealed  in  Christ. 
In  all  place,  in  all  time,  from  eternity  to  eternity, 
Calvinism  sees  God."*     Its  thought  is  not  senti- 
ment, but  conviction — not  the  arousing  of  the  sen- 
^ous,  but  the  quickening  of  the  spiritual,  nature. 
zCalvin  considered  it  next  to  a  crime  to  appeal  to 
men's  feelings  simply  in  order  to  have  them  act./ 
He  desired  rather-  to  bring  the  rule  of  conscience 
into  the  practical  life — to  make  the  voice  of  God, 
speaking  in  the  soul,  the  guide  in  all  the  conduct. 
He  sought  rather  to  convince  men  than  to  fill  them 
*  Bayne's  Chief  Actors  in  the  Puritan  Revolution^  p.  16. 


dOS 


CALVINISM  IN  HISTORY 


with  a  transient  sensation.  Thus  a  deep  sense  of  duty 
is  the  great  thing  in  the  moral  life  of  the  Calvinist. 
His  first  and  last  question  is,  Is  it  right  f  Of  that 
he  must  first  be  convinced.  Hence  with  him  Gon- 
science  has  the  first  place  in  all  practical  questions. 

You  will  observe  how  this  idea  of  duty  runs 
through  all  the  Calvinistic  philosophy,  as  in 
Reid's  of  Great  Britain,  Kant's  of  Germany,  Jona- 
than Edwards's  of  America.  In  the  Calvinistic 
conception  God  has  marked  out  the  way  in  which 
man  is  to  walk — a  way  which  he  will  not  change  ; 
and  man  is  required  to  walk  in  it,  joyously  or  sor- 
rowfully, with  as  much  or  as  little  sentiment  as  he 
pleases.  Hence  the  Calvinist  is  not,  religiously,  a 
man  cff  demonstrations,  but  rather  a  man  of 
thoughtfulness ;  so  that  his  morality,  whatever  it 
may  be  otherwise,  is  characterized  by  stability  and 
strength,  which  may  sometimes  lapse  into  stubborn- 
ness and  harshness.  "  He  is  troubled,''  says  Taine, 
"  not  only  about  what  he  must  believe,  but  about 
what  he  ought  to  do ;  he  craves  an  answer  to  his 
doubts,  but  especially  a  rule  for  his  conduct ;  he  is 
tormented  by  the  notion  of  his  ignorance,  but  also 
by  the  horror  of  his  vices ;  he  seeks  God,  but  duty 
also.  In  his  eyes  the  two  are  but  one."  *  "  We 
*  Ev  g.  Literature,  ii.  462. 


CALVINISM  AS  A  MORAL  FORCE.         109 

have/'  he  contiimes,  ^^  considered  these  Puritans  as 
gloomy  madmen,  shallow  brains  and  full  of  scru- 
ples. Let  us  quit  our  French  and  modern  ideas, 
and  enter  into  these  souls  :  we  shall  find  there  some- 
thing else  than  hypochondria — namely,  a  grand 
sentiment,  ^Am  I  a  just  man  ?  And  if  God,  who 
is  perfect  justice,  were  to  judge  me  at  this  moment, 
what  sentence  would  he  pass  upon  me?'  Such  is 
the  original  idea  of  the  Puritans.  .  .  .  The  feeling 
of  the  diiference  there  is  between  good  and  evil  had 
filled  for  them  all  time  and  space,  and  had  become 
incarnate.  .  .  .  They  were  struck  by  the  idea  of 
duty.  They  examined  themselves  by  this  light, 
without  pity  or  shrinking ;  they  conceived  the  sub- 
lime model  of  infallible  and  complete  virtue ;  they 
were  imbued  therewith ;  they  drowned  in  this  ab- 
sorbing thouglit  all  worldly  prejudices  and  all  in- 
clinations of  the  senses.  .  .  .  They  entered  into  life 
with  a  fixed  resolve  to  suffer  and  to  do  all,  rather 
than  deviate  one  step."  * 

Such  was  the  morality  of  the  men  whom  liberals 
(so  called)  and  free-thinkers  and  free-lovers  have 
endeavored  to  ridicule,  and  such  the  moral  system 
which  men  claiming  to  be  enlightened  and  truthful 
have  said  to  be  an  "  outrage  upon  conscience "  and 

*  Eng.  Literature^  ii.  471. 


110  CALVINISM  IN  HISTORY. 

unfavorable  to  good  morals.  It  is  indeed  the  lustre 
of  its  morality  which  has  made  it  so  conspicuous  a 
mark  for  the  shafts  of  the  foe.  The  strictness  of 
its  purity  arouses  against  it  the  passions  of  those 
who  are  conscious  of  being  far  below  its  just  re- 
quirements. What  is  wanted  to-day,  and  in  all 
days  in  this  world,  is  not  less,  but  more,  of  the 
Calvinistic  conscience,  purity  and  rectitude. 

Another  prominent  characteristic  of  Calvinistic 
morality  is  its  courageousness.  This  follows  from 
the  former.  Conscience  and  courage  go  together. 
Conscience  makes  "cowards'^  or  heroes  "of  us  all.'' 
To  change  the  conscience  you  must  first  change  the 
idea.  But  this  is  not  easily  done.  Sentiment,  or 
feeling',  may  pass  through  a  thousand  changes  in  a 
moment,  and  carry  its  possessor  in  so  many  direc- 
tions; but  conviction  holds  steadfastly  on  in  the 
same  unvarying  way  until  by  some  brighter  light 
it  discovers  its  error  and  turns  aside.  Hence  the 
men  of  conscience  are,  other  things  being  equal, 
the  brave  men,  the  bold  men,  the  courageous  men. 
Calvinism,  by  appealing  to  conscience  and  em- 
phasizing duty,  begets  a  moral  heroism  which  has 
been  the  theme  of  song  and  praise  for  three  cen- 
turies. Channing's  view  was  peculiarly  distorted 
when  he  said  that  Calvinism  "owes  its  perpetuity 


CALVINISM  AS  A    MORAL  FORCE.         Ill 

to  the  influence  of  fear  in  palsying  the  moral  na- 
ture." Had  he  not  read  the  history  of  the  Ref- 
ormation in  Europe  or  of  the  Revolution  in  Eng- 
land? Had  he  so  soon  forgotten  the  moral  he- 
roism of  the  Puritans  of  his  own  New  England? 
Fear,  indeed,  is  one  of  the  least  potent  elements  in 
the  Calvinistic  system.  Calvinism  does  teach  a  fear 
of  God,  a  fear  of  sin  and  a  fear  of  hell ;  and,  if 
the  Gospel  be  true,  it  becomes  all  men  to  have  fear 
in  that  direction.  That,  surely,  from  which  the 
Son  of  God  died  to  redeem  men  ought  to  be  feared 
as  nothing  else  is.  It  is  the  loving  forewarning  of 
the  Redeemer  not  to  fear  men,  but  to  "  fear  Him 
who,  after  he  hath  killed,  hath  power  to  cast  into 
hell.  Yea,  I  say  unto  you.  Fear  him."  Such  a 
fear  Calvinism  does  conscientiously  and  faithfully 
inculcate.  Yet  such  is  its  tendency  to  deliver  from 
a  slavish  bondage  to  fear  that  not  a  small  class  of 
men  have  looked  upon  it  as  a  species  of  lofty  fatal- 
ism, somewhat  more  divine  than  Islaraism. 

Certain  it  is  that  it  gives  no  such  place  to  fear 
as  does  the  system  of  a  rigid  Arminianism.  Con- 
sider the  terrors  brought  to  bear  upon  the  mind 
by  the  Church  of  Rome  and  you  get  an  idea  of 
the  fear-element  of  a  strict  Arminianism.  Even 
of  Arminianism  as  embodied    in   Methodism  —  so 


Y 


112  CALVINISM  IN  HISTORY. 

much  more  evangelical  and  moderate  than  that 
of  Eomanism — Lecky,  who  speaks  with  the  cold, 
philosophic  spirit  of  the  rationalist,  says :  "A  more 
appalling  system  of  religious  terrorism,  one  more 
fitted  to  unhinge  a  tottering  intellect  and  to  darken 
and  embitter  a  sensitive  nature,  has  seldom  exist- 
ed."* While  I  quote  him  not  to  justify  him  al- 
together in  this  judgment,  I  yet  can  well  conceive 
of  the  terror  to  a  sensitive  soul  of  that  dark  un- 
certainty as  to  salvation,  and  of  that  ever-abiding 
consciousness  of  the  awful  possibility  of  falling 
I  away  from  grace  after  a  long  and  painful  Chris- 
^  tian  life,  w^iich  is  taught  by  Arminianism.  To 
me  such  a  doctrine  has  terrors  which  would  cause 
me  to 'sh rink  away  from  it  for  ever,  and  which 
would  fill  me  wath  constant  and  unspeakable  per- 
plexities. To  feel  that  I  were  crossing  the  troubled 
and  dangerous  sea  of  life  dependent  for  my  final 
security  upon  the  actings  of  my  own  treacherous 
nature  were  enough  to  fill  me  with  a  perpetual 
alarm.  If  it  is  possible,  I  want  to  know  that  the 
vessel  to  which  I  commit  my  life  is  seaworthy,  and 
that,  having  once  embarked,  I  shall  arrive  in  safety 
at  my  destination. 

This  is  what  the  doctrines  of  Calvinism  assure 

^  Hist  of  Engl.,  Eic/hfeentk  Cenlury,  ii.  633. 


CALVINISM  AS  A   MORAL  FORCE.         113 

me.  With  its  free  grace,  its  eifectual  calling,  its 
final  perseverance  and  divine  sovereignty,  it  affords 
me  a  consciousness  of  security  in  the  midst  of  all 
my  doubts,  temptations  and  perplexities.  It  thus 
inspires  its  possessor  with  confidence,  so  that  he  can 
triumphantly  say,  "I  am  persuaded  that  he  shall 
keep  that  which  I  have  committed  to  him  against 
that  day.'^  It  thus  dethrones  fear,  exalts  confidence, 
and  works  in  the  mind  the  conviction  that  the  in- 
terests committed  to  Christ  are  kept  against  all  the 
possibility  of  loss,  and  that  the  man  himself  is  im- 
mortal until  his  work  is  done.  Where  such  a  con- 
viction prevails,  courage  must  follow.  Hence  the 
remark  of  the  historian  Bancroft:  "A  coward  and 
a  Puritan  never  went  together." 

For  the  courageous  morality  of  the  Calvinists 
one  has  only  to  look  at  the  doings  of  the  Inquisi- 
tion in  the  Low  Countries  and  at  the  martyrdoms 
of  Cambray  and  the  fires  of  Smithfield.  Who 
were  the  martyrs  but  Calvinists?  There  is  no 
other  system  of  religion  in  the  world  which  has 
such  a  glorious  array  of  martyrs  to  the  faith.  Al- 
most every  man  and  woman  who  walked  to  the 
flames  rather  than  deny  the  faith  or  leave  a  stain 
on  conscience  was  the  devout  follower  not  only, 
and  first  of  all,  of  the  Son  of  God,  but  also  of  that 


114  CALVINISM  IN  HISTORY. 

minister  of  God  who  made  Geneva  the  light  of  Eu- 
rope. Is,  then,  the  system  one  of  paralyzing  influ- 
ence on  the  moral  nature  ? 

"  I  am  going  to  ask  you/'  says  Fronde,  who  is 
sometimes  spoken  of  as  an  assailant  of  Calvinism, 
"  to  consider  how  it  came  to  pass  that  if  Calvinism 
is  indeed  the  hard  and   unreasonable  creed  which 
modern  enlightment  declares  it  to  be,  it  has  possess- 
ed such  singular  attractions  in  past  times  for  some  of 
the  greatest  men  that  ever  lived ;  and  how,  being, 
as  we  are  told,  fatal  to  morality,  because  it  denies 
free-will,  the  first  symptom  of  its  operation  wher- 
ever it  established  itself  was  to  obliterate  the  dis- 
tinction between  sins  and  crimes,  and  to  make  the 
moral  Haw  the  rule  of  life  for  states  as  well  as  per- 
sons.    I  shall  ask  you  again,  why,  if  it  be  a  creed 
of  intellectual  servitude,  it  was  able  to  inspire  and 
sustain   the   bravest  efforts  ever  made  by  man  to 
break   the  yoke  of  unjust  authority?     When  all 
else  has  failed;    when  patriotism  has  covered  its 
face  and  human  courage  has  broken  down;  when 
intellect  has  yielded,  as  Gibbon  says,  ^  with  a  smile 
or  a  sigh,'  content  to  philosophize  in  the  closet  and 
abroad  to  worship  with  the  vulgar ;  w^hen  emotion 
and  sentiment  and  tender  imaginative  piety  have 
become  the   handmaids  of  superstition,  and  have 


CALVINISM  AS  A  31  ORAL  FORCE.        115 

dreamt  themselves  into  forgetfulness  that  there  is 
any  difference  between  lies  and  truth, — the  slavish 
form  of  the  belief  called  Calvinism,  in  one  or 
other  of  its  many  forms,  has  borne  ever  an  inflex- 
ible front  to  illusion  and  mendacity,  and  has  pre- 
ferred rather  to  be  ground  to  powder  like  flint  than 
to  bend  before  violence  or  melt  under  enervating 
temptation."  In  illustration  of  this  he  mentioos 
William  the  Silent,  Luther,  Knox,  Andrew  Mel- 
ville, the  regent  Murray,  Coligny,  Cromwell,  Mil- 
ton, Bunyan,  and  says  of  them :  "  These  were  men 
possessed  of  all  the  qualities  which  give  nobility 
and  Q^randeur  to  human  nature — men  whose  life 
■was  as  upright  as  their  intellect  was  commanding 
and  their  public  aims  untainted  with  selfishness; 
unalterably  just  where  duty  required  them  to  be 
stern,  but  with  the  tenderness  of  a  woman  in  their 
hearts;  frank,  true,  cheerful,  humorous,  as  unlike 
sour  fanatics  as  it  is  possible  to  imagine  any  one, 
and  able  in  some  way  to  sound  the  keynote  to 
which  every  brave  and  faithful  heart  in  Europe 
instinctively  vibrated."  * 

With  this  testimony  every  enlightened  and  im- 
partial reader  of  history  will  agree.     The  men  of 
commanding  moral  courage  have   been,  and  now 
*  Calvinism,  pp.  7,  8. 


116  CALVINISM  m  HISTORY. 

are,  those  who  have  been  most  thoroughly  and  in- 
telligently imbued  with  the  Calvinistic  doctrines. 
As  another  has  said,  "Calvin's  fiery  insistence  of 
men  and  nations  to  God's  moral  law  was,  in  the  es- 
sence of  it,  noble,  supremely  noble,  vibrating  in 
true  sympathy  with  the  purest  heroisms  the  world 
has  ever  seen."* 

Another  prominent  characteristic  of  the  Calvin- 
istic morality  is  its  practicalness.  As  we  have  seen, 
it  is  a  morality  not  of  sentiment,  but  of  idea;  a 
morality  which  does  not  dissipate  itself  in  the  glow 
of  a  transient  emotion,  but  which,  seizing  upon  the 
conscience,  works  out  in  the  practices  and  expe- 
riences of  life;  a  morality  not  of  a  speculative 
nature,  "but  of  an  earnest,  active  life  struggling  to 
make  the  conduct  square  with  the  requirements  of 
the  law  of  God.  "  What,"  says  one,  "  is  this  Prot- 
estantism which  is  being  founded  in  England? 
What  is  this  ideal  model  which  it  presents  ?  and 
what  original  conception  is  to  furnish  to  this  peo- 
23le  its  permanent  and  dominant  poem?  The 
harshest  and  most  jjradical  of  all — that  of  the 
Puritans,  which,  neglecting  speculation,  falls  back 
upon  action,  binds  human  life  in  a  rigid  discipline, 
imposes  on  the  soul  continuous  effort,  prescribes  to 
*  Bayne,  ChUf  Actors  in  the  Puritan  Revolution,  p.  22. 


CALVINISM  AS  A   MORAL  FORCE.         117 

society  a  cloisteral  austerity,  forbids  pleasure,  com- 
mands action,  exacts  sacrifice,  and  forms  the  moral- 
ist, the  laborer,  the  citizen.  Thus  is  it  implanted, 
the  great  English  idea — I  mean  that  man  is  before 
all  a  free  and  moral  personage,  and  that,  having 
conceived  alone  in  his  conscience  and  before  God 
the  rule  of  his  conduct,  he  must  employ  himself 
completely  in  applying  it  within  himself,  beyond 
himself,  obstinately,  inflexibly,  by  a  perpetual  re- 
sistance opposed  to  others  and  a  perpetual  restraint 
imposed  upon  himself/'"^ 

This  brilliant  writer  calls  it  the  ^^  harshest  '^  of 
all  religious  conceptions.  To  this  we  would  by  no 
means  assent,  unless  harshness  means  obedience  to 
God's  laws  and  resistance  to  sin.  That  may  indeed 
be  considered  harsh.  The  child  may  deem  it  hard 
treatment  to  be  compelled  to  be  truthful ;  the  crim- 
inal may  consider  it  a  cruelty  to  be  punished  for  his 
crimes ;  and  he  wdio  wishes  to  live  in  the  violation 
of  moral  principles  may  regard  it  as  an  outrage 
upon  his  liberty  to  be  reminded  of  his  guiltiness 
and  warned  of  its  penalty.  In  this  sense  the  Cal- 
vinistic  morality  is  "harsh,"  exceeding  harsh — 
harsh,  indeed,  as  Nature's  laws — but  it  lays  upon 
man  not  one  exaction  which  it  does  not  find 
*  Taine,  Eng.  Literafure,  ii.  pp.  316,  317. 


118  CALVINISM  IN  HISTORY. 

already   laid   upon    him   by   the   God   who   made 
him. 

It  is  this  practicalness  of  the  Calvinistic  morality 
which  has  ever  made  it  so  beneficent.  It  is  this 
which  has  formed  its  adherents  into  the  most  moral 
of  all  classes  of  human  society — which  gaye  to  the 
Puritans  the  very  title  which  is  significant  of  their 
eminent  moral  qualities,  and  transformed  the  idle 
and  slothful  into  the  industrious  and  respected 
citizen.  "  Grave  as  we  may  count  the  faults 
of  Calvinism/'  says  one  who  is  not  at  all  given 
to  lavish  compliments  upon  it,  "alien  as  its 
temper  may  in  many  ways  be  from  the  temper  of 
the  modern  world,  it  is  in  Calvinism  that  the  mod- 
ern wotld  strikes  its  roots;  for  it  was  Calvinism 
that  first  revealed  the  worth  and  dignity  of  man. 
Called  of  God  and  heir  of  heaven,  the  trader  at 
his  counter  and  the  digger  in  his  field  suddenly 
rose  into  equality  with  the  noble  and  the  king.''  * 
The  same  author  also  accredits  to  Calvinism  the 
formation  of  that  sacred  institution,  the  English 
Some,  saying,  "  Home,  as  we  conceive  it,  was  the 
creation  of  the  Puritan."  When  there  was  no 
such  institution  in  the  world  as  Home;  when  the 
family  existed  without  the  sacred  ministries  of 
^  Green,  Hisl.  Etuj.  People,  ii.  p.  280. 


CALVINISM  AS  A   MORAL  FORCE.         119 

domestic  life ;  when  the  woman  was  but  the  shive 
or  the  idol  or  the  amusement  of  the  man,  as  his 
temper  or  power  or  will  might  dictate;  when  the 
worst  of  vices  were  practiced  within  the  domestic 
circle, — the  Calvinists,  by  their  constant  aim  at 
self-control,  and  their  perpetual  endeavor  for  the 
purity  of  morals,  and  their  high  regard  for  the 
marriage-covenant  as  symbolical  of  their  relations 
to  Christ,  and  their  belief  in  the  sublime  possi- 
bilities of  the  woman  as  the  man,  formed,  out  of 
a  loose  and  corrupt  society,  the  hallowed  shrine 
where  the  holiest  affections  are  brought  into  play, 
and  around  which  the  fondest  recollections  of  man 
cluster.  That  they  did  this  one  thing — formed  the 
Christian  Home — entitles  them  to  the  imperishable 
gratitude  of  mankind. 

Let  this  also  be  remembered  as  a  diadem  upon 
the  brow  of  Calvinistic  morality :  that  in  all  the 
history  of  the  Puritans  there  is  not  an  example  of 
a  divorce.  That  is  enouo;h  to  offset  the  modern 
liberalistic  cry  against  Puritanic  strictness.  Is  it 
not  Puritanism  which  modern  society  needs  to 
purify  and  sweeten  its  corrupt  and  bitter  waters 
and  to  give  a  healthful  tono  to  all  its  moral  life? 
"The  Calvinists  were  the  men/'  says  Fronde,  "who 
al)liorred,  as  no  body  of  men  ever  more  abhorred, 


I  120  CALVINISM  IN  HISTORY. 

all  conscious  mendacity,  all  impurity,  all  moral 
wrong  of  every  kind  so  far  as  they  could  recog- 
nize it.  Whatever  exists  at  this  moment  in  Eng- 
land and  Scotland  of  conscientious  fear  of  doing 
evil  is  the  remnant  of  the  convictions  which  were 
branded  by  the  Calvinists  into  the  people's  hearts/'  * 
They  were  they  "who  attracted  to  their  ranks  al- 
most every  man  in  Western  Europe  that  hated  a 
lie." 

"  There  is  no  system,''  says  Henry  Ward  Beecher, 
"which  equals  Calvinism  in  intensifying,  to  the  last 
degree,  ideas  of  moral  excellence  and  purity  of 
character.  There  never  was  a  system  since  the 
world  stood  which  puts  upon  man  such  motives 
to  holirless,  or  which  builds  batteries  which  sweep 
the  whole  ground  of  sin  with  such  horrible  ar- 
tillery." f  "Men  may  talk  as  much  as  they  please 
against  the  Calvinists  and  Puritans  and  Presbyte- 
rians, but  you  will  find  that  when  they  want  to 
make  an  investment  they  have  no  objection  to 
Calvinism  or  Puritanism  or  Presbyterianism.  They 
know  that  where  these  systems  prevail,  where  the 
doctrine  of  men's  obligation  to  God  and  man  is 
taught  and  practiced,  there  their  capital  may  be 

*  Calvinism,  p.  44, 

f  Leading  Thoughts  of  Living  Thinhei^s. 


CALVINISM  AS  A  MORAL  FORCE.         121 J 

safely  invested.'^*  "They  tell  us/'  he  continues, 
"that  Calvinism  plies  men  with  hammer  and  with 
chisel.  It  does;  and  the  result  is  monumental 
marble.  Other  systems  leave  men  soft  and  dirty; 
Calvinism  makes  them  of  white  marble,  to  endure 
for  ever." 

VYou  may  examine  all  the  history  of  Christian 
people  and  of  religious  systems,  and  you  will  not 
find  any  more  eminent  for  piety  and  morality  than 
the  Calvinists/)  In  charity,  in  liberality,  in  indus- 
try, in  temperance,  in  purity  of  life,  they  stand 
without  a  superior — perhaps  without  an  equal. 
Compare  the  Huguenots  and  Jansenists,  who  were 
Calvinists,  with  their  countrymen,  the  Romanists 
and  Jesuits,  who  were  Arminians.  Were  not  the 
former  as  illustrious  in  virtue  as  the  latter  were 
notorious  for  immorality?  "The  destruction  of 
the  former  by  the  Revocation  of  the  Edict  of 
Nantes  was,"  says  Lecky,  "the  destruction  of  the 
most  solid,  the  most  modest,  the  most  virtuous, 
the  most  generally  enlightened  element  in  the 
French  nation,  and  it  prepared  the  way  for  the 
inevitable  degradation  of  the  national  character, 
and  the  last  serious  bulwark  was  removed  that 
might  have  broken  the  force  of  that  torrent  of 
*  Even.  Sermon,  Feb.  10,  1860. 


122  CALVINISM  IN  HISTORY. 

skepticism  and  vice  which,  a  century  later,  laid 
prostrate,  in  merited  ruin,  both  the  altar  and  the 
throne."  * 

The  morality  of  the  Huguenots,  whether  suffer- 
ing persecution  at  home  or  enduring  the  trials  of 
exile  abroad,  was  the  wonder  of  both  friend  and 
foe.  Looking  back,  says  one,  at  the  sufferings  of 
those  of  them  who  remained  in  France  after  the 
Revocation  of  the  Edict,  and  at  the  purity,  self- 
denial,  honesty  and  industry  of  their  lives,  and  at 
the  devotion  with  which  they  adhered  to  religious 
duty  and  the  worship  of  God,  we  cannot  fail  to  re- 
gard them  as  amongst  the  truest,  greatest  and  wor- 
thiest heroes  of  their  age.  "  When  society  in  France 
was  failing  to  pieces;  when  its  men  and  women 
were  ceasing  to  believe  in  themselves  and  in  each 
other;  when  the  religion  of  the  state  had  become 
a  mass  of  abuse,  consistent  only  in  its  cruelty ; 
when  the  debauchery  of  its  kings  had  descended 
through  the  aristocracy  to  the  people,  until  the 
whole  mass  was  becoming  thoroughly  corrupt," 
— the  Huguenots  were  the  only  pure  and  true 
men — the  only  men  who  were  moved  by  great 
ideas  or  controlled  by  honest  convictions — the 
only  men  who  were   willing   to   die   rather   than 

*  Eng.  Hist,  Eighteenth  Century,  I  264,  265. 


CALVINISM  AS  A  MORAL   FORCE.         123 

forsake  the  worship  of  God  according  to  the 
Scriptures   and   conscience.* 

Outside  of  the  circle  of  the  Huguenots  there 
was  indeed  but  little  that  deserved  the  name  of 
morality  in  France.  Their  honesty  was  so  remark- 
able that  even  among  their  bitterest  enemies  it  was 
proverbial.  To  be  "  honest  as  a  Huguenot  '^  was 
deemed  the  highest  degree  of  integrity.  And  while 
they  were  stigmatized  by  the  Roman  Catholics  as 
"  heretics/^  "  atheists/^  "  blasphemers/'  "  monsters 
vomited  forth  of  hell/'  and  the  like,  not  one  accu- 
sation was  brought  against  the  morality  and  integ- 
rity of  their  character.  "The  silence  of  their 
enemies  on  this  head  is/'  says  Smiles,  "perhaps 
the  most  eloquent  testimony  in  their  favor."  They 
were,  says  the  same  author,  "  Avhat  the  Puritan  was 
in  England  and  the  Covenanter  in  Scotland ;  and 
that  the  system  of  Calvin  should  have  developed 
precisely  the  same  kind  of  men  in  these  three  sev- 
eral countries  affords  a  remarkable  illustration  of 
the  power  of  religious  training  in  the  formation  of 
character."  f 

Now,  what  could  have  made  the  difference  in 
moral  character  between   these   French   Calvinists 

*  Smiles,  Huguenots  in  France,  p.  275. 
t  Ibid.,  p.  134. 


124  CALVINISM  IN  HISTORY. 

and  Armiaians  but  their  different  religions  ?  They 
were  of  one  nation  and  one  tongue,  and  frequently 
of  one  household,  having  the  same  natural  qualities 
and  affections ;  but  they  had  a  different  creed,  and 
that  tells  the  tale. 

Look,  too,  at  Scotland  before  and  after  Knox  and 
his  colaborers  effected  the  Scottish  Reformation. 
Arrainianism,  as  exemplified  in  the  Church  of 
Rome,  had  had  the  training  of  that  people  for 
centuries ;  and  what  had  it  made  of  them  ?  Some- 
thing less  than  human.  Gross  darkness  covered 
the  land  and  brooded  like  an  eternal  nightmare 
upon  all  the  faculties  of  the  people.  Poverty, 
squalor,  ignorance,  vice  and  wretchedness  were  the 
prevaiHng  characteristics  of  society.  But  see  the 
quick  and  marvelous  change  effected  when  once  the 
free  doctrines  learned  by  Knox  at  Geneva  flashed 
in  upon  their  minds.  It  was  as  the  sun  rising  in 
his  fullness  at  midnight.  And  in  their  later  history, 
so  long  as  they  remained  untainted  with  other  be- 
liefs, their  morality  was  the  wonder  of  the  world. 
The  celebrated  Dr.  Chalmers  says:  "It  may  be 
suspected  that  although  a  theology  is  the  minister  of 
peace,  it  cannot  be  the  minister  of  holiness.  Now, 
to  those  who  have  this  suspicion,  and  who  would 
represent  the  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith — that 


CALVINISM  AS  A   MORAL  FORCE.        125 

article,  as  Luther  calls  it,  of  a  standing  or  falling 
Church — as  adverse  to  the  interests  of  virtue,  I 
would  put  one  question  and  ask  them  to  resolve 
it.  How  comes  it  that  Scotland,  which,  of  all  the 
countries  of  Europe,  is  the  most  signalized  by  the 
rigid  Calvinism  of  her  pulpits,  should  also  be  the 
most  signalized  by  the  moral  glory  that  sits  on  the 
aspect  of  her  general  population?  How,  in  the 
name  of  mystery,  should  it  happen  that  such  a 
theology  as  ours  is  conjoined  with  perhaps  the  yet 
most  unvitiated  peasantry  among  the  nations  of 
Christendom  ?  The  allegation  against  our  churches 
is,  that  in  the  argumentation  of  our  abstract  and 
speculative  controversies  the  people  are  so  little 
schooled  to  the  performance  of  good  works.  And 
how,  then,  is  it  that  in  our  courts  of  justice,  when 
compared  with  the  calendars  of  our  sister-kingdom, 
there  should  be  so  vastly  less  to  do  with  their  evil 
works  ?  It  is  certainly  a  most  important  experience, 
that  in  that  country  where  there  is  the  most  of  Cal- 
vinism there  should  be  the  least  of  crime  ;  that  what 
may  be  called  the  most  doctrinal  nation  of  Europe 
should,  at  the  same  time,  be  the  least  depraved ;  and 
that  the  land  wherein  people  are  most  deeply  im- 
bued with  the  principles  of  salvation  by  grace 
should  be  the   least  distempered  either  by  their 


126  CALVINISM  IN  HISTORY. 

week-day   profligacies   or   their   Sabbath    profana- 
tions.'^  * 

That  is  certainly  a  remarkable  coincidence,  that 
where  there  is  the  most  of  Calvinism  there  is  the 
least  of  crime,  if  Calvinism  be  unfavorable  to 
morality.  Similar  also  are  the  results  wherever 
the  doctrines  of  Calvinism  are  honestly  and  intel- 
ligently embraced.  There  the  people  practice  such 
a  rigid  code  of  morality  as  subjects  them  to  the 
sneering  remarks  of  those  who  adopt  a  lower  stand- 
ard and  entertain  but  few  conscientious  scruples 
regarding  their  conduct.  The  bigotry,  narrowness 
and  intolerance  of  which  the  Calvinists  have  been 
so  often  accused  will  generally  prove  to  be  the 
virtues  which  adorn  human  society  and  make  civ- 
ilization a  possibility.  Their  "bigotry"  is  chiefly 
devotion  to  righteousness ;  their  "  narrowness," 
their  fear  of  swerving  from  the  "  narrow  way " 
which  leadeth  unto  life;  their  "intolerance,"  the 
impatience  of  their  zeal  for  the  establishment  of 
their  Redeemer's  kingdom  upon  earth.  Such  men 
will  indeed  appear,  at  times,  intolerant,  through 
the  intensity  of  their  enthusiasm  and  their  impa- 
tience with  the  sophistries  by  which  many  endeavor 
to  conceal  or  excuse  their  follies  and  vices;  but  it  is 
*  Sermon  :  The  Respect  due  to  Antiquity. 


CALVINISM  AS  A  MORAL  FORCE.         127 

the  intolerance  of  the  good  housewife,  who  brushes 
away  the  moths  and  the  cobwebs  and  makes  the 
dwelling  habitable;  it  is  the  intolerance  of  the 
fresh  breeze,  which  sweeps  away  the  poisonous 
vapors  and  gives  to  the  atmosphere  the  elements 
of  life. 

"The  Calvinists/^  says  Froude,  "have  been  call- 
ed intolerant ;  but  intolerance  of  an  enemy  wdio  is 
trying  to  kill  you  seems  to  me  a  pardonable  state 
of  mind.  It  is  no  easy  matter  to  tolerate  lies, 
clearly  convicted  of  being  lies,  under  any  circum- 
stances ;  specially,  it  is  not  easy  to  tolerate  lies 
which  strut  about  in  the  name  of  religion.^'  *  Of 
such  things  the  gospel  of  Christ  is  eternally  in- 
tolerant. 

\I  cannot  close  this  chapter  without  adverting,  for 
a  moment,  to  the  moral  character  and  worth  of  the 
Calvinists  of  New  England — men  whose  strict  and 
rigid  morality  has  become  a  proverb.  They  have 
been  spoken  of  and  pointed  at  scornfully,  as  if  they 
were  only  fanatics.  And  yet,  amongst  all  the  peo- 
})le  in  the  American  colonies,  they  stood  morally 
without  peers. ,'  They  w^re  the  men  and  the  women 
of  conscience,  of  sterling  convictions.  They  were  not, 
indeed,  greatly  given  to  sentimentalism.  With  mere 
*  Calvinism,  p.  43. 


128  CALVINISM  IN  HISTORY. 

spectacular  observances  in  religion  they  had  no  sym- 
pathy. Life  to  them  was  an  experience  too  noble 
and  earnest  and  solemn  to  be  frittered  away  in  pious 
ejaculations  and  emotional  rhapsodies.  They  be- 
lieved with  all  their  soul  in  a  just  God,  a  heaven 
and  a  hell.  They  felt,  in  the  innermost  core  of 
their  hearts,  that  life  was  short  and  its  responsi- 
bilities great.  Hence  their  religion  was  their  life. 
All  their  thoughts  and  relations  were  imbued  with 
it.  Not  only  men,  but  beasts  also,  were  made  to 
feel  its  favorable  influence.  Cruelty  to  animals 
was  a  civil  offence.  In  this  respect  they  were  two 
centuries  in  advance  of  the  bulk  of  mankind. 
They  were  industrious,  frugal  and  enterprising, 
and  consequently  affluence  followed  in  their  path 
and  descended  to  their  children  and  children's 
children.  Drunkenness,  profanity  and  beggary 
were  things  little  known  to  them.  They  needed 
neither  lock  nor  burglar-proof  to  secure  their 
honestly-gotten  possessions.  The  simple  wooden 
bolt  was  enough  to  protect  them  and  their  wealth 
where  honesty  was  a  rule  of  life.  As  the  result 
of  such  a  life  they  were  healthy  and  vigorous. 
They  lived  long  and  happily,  reared  large  and 
devoted  families,  and  descended  to  the  grave  "like 
as  a  shock  of  corn  cometh  in  his  season,"  in  peace 


CALVINISM  AS  A   MORAL  FORCE.         129 

with  God  and  their  fellow-men,  rejoicing  in  the 
hope  of  a  blessed  resurrection. 

It  is  said  that  they  believed  in  "  witches."  Well, 
what  if  they  did?  That  was  the  belief  of  their 
age.  Men  who  have  been  a  glory  to  the  world 
believed  in  witches.  But  the  Puritans  abandoned 
the  belief  with  penitence  long  before  it  was  given 
up  by  others  whose  names  are  honored  household 
words.  Long  after  them — so  late  as  the  latter 
half  of  the  last  century — John  Wesley,  whose 
life  has  been  an  ornament  to  tlie  world,  advocated 
belief  in  witchcraft  with  all  his  accustomed  ability 
and  zeal.  He  declared  with  the  utmost  emphasis 
his  belief  in  it,  and  attributed  its  downfall  to  skep- 
ticism. He  believed  that  in  giving  it  up  a  man 
was  in  effect  giving  up  the  Bible.  He  said  :  "  I 
cannot  give  up  to  all  the  deists  in  Great  Britain 
my  belief  in  the  existence  of  witchcraft  till  I  give 
up  the  credit  of  all  history,  sacred  and  profane."* 

We  do  not  believe  that  now.     But  so  the  great 

and  good  Wesley  believed.     Let  not,  therefore,  such 

a   belief  be  attributed    solely  to  the  Puritans  of 

New  England,  for  they  abandoned  it  long  before 

it  ceased  to  exist  in  Qld  England.     They,  indeed, 

were,  as  Bancroft  observes,  "of  all  contemporary 

*  Lecky,  Hist.  Eng.,  Eighteenth  Century,  vol,  ii.  p.  645. 
9 


130  CALVINISM  IN  HISTORY. 

sects  the  most  free  from  credulity/'  .  .  .  and  "their 
transient  persecutions  in  America  were  in  self-de- 
fence, and  were  no  more  than  a  train  of  mists 
hovering  of  an  autumn  mprning  over  the  channel 
of  a  fine  river  that  diffused  freshness  and  fertility 
wherever  it  wound."  * 

Thus  we  might  continue  to  trace  the  moral  influ- 
ence of  this  great  system  of  religious  belief,  and 
should  find  that  no  other  system  in  the  world  has 
produced  such  an  array  of  moral  heroes.  Its  illus- 
trious names  everywhere  crowd  the  pages  of  history, 
and  by  its  fruits  it  is  known  the  world  over. 

And  has  its  glory  departed  with  the  fathers,  and 
left  but  the  name  with  the  children  ?  It  cannot  be, 
if  God  be  true  and  the  world  and  life  be  not  a  de- 
lusion. Its  truths  are  eternal  as  the  laws  of  God, 
and  its  motives  are  as  mighty  to-day  as  of  old. 
There  is  the  same  omniscient  God  to  judge  us,  and 
the  same  hell  to  be  shunned  and  the  same  heaven 
to  be  secured.  Human  nature  is  still  the  same  de- 
praved thing ;  and  the  same  blood  of  the  Lamb  and 
fire  of  the  Spirit  are  requisite  unto  life.  Our  time 
here  is  but  the  same  short  day ;  the  fashion  of  the 
world  still  passeth  away ;  and  into  the  solemn  real- 
ities of  eternity  we  too  must  speedily  enter.  Ah,  yes ; 
*  Hist.  U.  S.,  vol.  i.  463,  464. 


CALVINISM  AS  A  MORAL  FORCE.        131 

but  have  we  gotten  hold  of  the  truths  of  God  and 
the  responsibilities  of  life  as  the  fathers  had  ?  Has 
the  Spirit  of  God  burned  the  real  meaning  of  life 
into  our  souls  as  into  theirs  ?  In  the  grand  privi- 
leges which  we  possess,  sitting  under  our  peaceful 
vines  and  fig  trees,  fearing  no  storm  and  knowing 
no  alarm,  may  we  not  let  life  slip  away,  to  be  arous- 
ed at  last  to  the  awful  realization  of  its  eternal  loss  ? 
Oh,  that  we  might  know  the  time — that  this  is  the 
day  of  salvation ! 


IT. 

CALVINISM  AS  AN  EVANGELIZING  FORCE. 

TN  this  chapter  our  inquiry  will  be  as  to  the 
evangelizing  force  of  Calvinism.  Has  Calvin- 
ism, as  compared  with  other  systems  of  religious 
doctrine,  shown  itself  to  have  been  a  power  in  the 
evangelization  of  the  world?  This  is  the  most 
important  question  connected  with  any  system  of 
belieft  All  other  questions  are,  in  every  Christian's 
opinion,  subordinate  to  this.  To  save  sinners'  and 
convert  the  world  to  a  practical  godliness  must  be 
the  chief,  the  first  and  last,  aim  of  every  system 
of  religion.  If  it  does  not  respond  to  this,  it  must 
be  set  aside,  however  popular  it  may  be. 

The  question,  then,  before  us  now  is,  not  whether 
the  system  of  doctrines  called  Calvinism  is  the  most 
acceptable  and  popular  with  the  world,  but  whether 
it  is  eminently  adapted  to  the  conversion  of  sinners 
and  the  edification  of  believers. 

In  determining  this  I  shall  proceed,  as  in  the  pre- 

132 


AS  AN  EVANGELIZING  FORCE.  133 

ceding  chapters,  according  to  the  law,  "  The  tree  is 
known  by  its  fruit." 

We  may,  however,  premise,  on  the  ground  of  the 
doctrines  included  in  this  system,  that  it  is  certainly 
most  favorable  to  the  spread  of  Christianity.  Its 
doctrines  are  all  taken  directly  from  the  Scriptures. 
The  word  of  God  is  its  only  infallible  rule  of  faith 
and  practice.  Even  its  doctrine  of  predestination, 
or  election,  which  most  men  dislike,  but  which  all 
Christians  practically  believe  and  teach,  is  granted 
by  some  of  its  bitterest  opponents  to  be  a  transcript 
of  the  teachings  of  the  New  Testament. 

The  historian  Froude  says :  "  If  Arminianism 
most  commends  itself  to  our  feelings,  Calvinism  is 
nearer  to  the  facts,  however  harsh  and  forbidding 
those  facts  may  seem."  *  And  Archbishop  Whately 
says  the  objections  against  it  "  are  objections  against 
the  facts  of  the  case."  So  Spinoza  and  John  Stuart 
Mill  and  Buckle,  and  all  the  materialistic  and  meta- 
physical philosophers,  "  can  find,"  says  an  eminent 
authority,  "no  better  account  of  the  situation  of 
man  than  in  the  illustration  of  St.  Paul :  ^  Hath  not 
the  potter  power  over  the  clay,  to  make  one  vessel 
to  honor  and  another  to  dishonor  ?  ^ "  There  never 
has  been,  and  it  is  doubtful  if  there  ever  can  be, 
*  Calvinism,  p.  6. 


134  CALVINISM  IN  HISTORY. 

an  Arminian  philosophy.  The  facts  of  life  are 
against  it ;  and  no  man  would  attempt  to  found  a 
philosophy  on  feeling  against  fact. 

Arminian  theologians  thought  they  had  discov- 
ered the  starting-point  for  a  systematic  philosophy 
and  theology  in  the  doctrine  of  "  free-will ;"  but 
even  that  was  swept  away  from  them  by  the  logic 
of  Jonathan  Edwards,  and  it  has  continued  to  be 
swept  farther  and  farther  away  by  Buckle  and  Mill 
and  all  the  great  philosophers.  Hence  it  comes  that, 
to  this  day,  there  is  not  a  logical  and  systematic 
body  of  Arminian  divinity.  It  has,  as  in  the 
Methodist  Church,  a  brief  and  informal  creed  in 
some  twenty-five  articles,  but  it  has  neither  a 
Confession  of  Faith  nor  a  complete  and  logical 
system  of  doctrine.*  To  make  such  a  system  it 
must  overthrow  the  philosophy  of  the  world  and 
the  facts  of  human  experience;  and  it  is  not  likely 
to  do  that  very  soon. 

Now,  the  thought  is,  Must  not  a  theology  which 
agrees  with  the  facts  of  the  case,  which  recognizes 
the  actual  condition  of  man  and  his  relations  to 
God,  be  more  favorable  to  man's  salvation  than 
one  which  ignores  the  facts? 

This  is  confirmed  by  the  nature  of  the  particular 
*  Humphrey's  Our  Theology,  p.  68,  etc. 


AS  AN  EVANGELIZING  FORCE.  135 

doctrines  involved.     AYe  freely  agree  with  Froude 
and  Macaulay  that  Arminianism,  in  one  aspect  of 
it,  is  ^^more  agreeable  to  the  feelings"  and  "more 
popular"  with  the  natural  heart,  as  that  which  ex- 
alts man  in  his  own  sight  is  always  more  agreeable 
to  him  than  that  which  abases  him.     Arminianism, 
in  denying  the  imputation  of  Christ's  righteousness 
to  the  believer,  in  setting  him  on  his  own  works  of 
righteousness,  and  in  promising  him  such  perfection 
in  this  life  as  that  there  is  no  more  sin  left  in  him 
— or,  in  the  words  of  John   Wesley,  a  "free,  full 
and  present  salvation  from  all   the  guilt,  all  the 
power   and    all   the   in-heing   of   sin "  * — lays    the 
foundation  for  the  notions  of  works  of  superero- 
gation, and  that  the  believer,  while  in  a  state  of 
grace,    cannot    commit    sin.       It    thus    powerfully 
ministers    to   human    pride    and    self-glorification. 
Calvinism,  on  the  other  hand,  by  imputing  Christ's 
righteousness  to  the  believer,  and  making  the  sin- 
ner utterly  and  absolutely  dependent  on  Christ  for 
his  salvation,  cuts  away  all  occasion  for  boasting 
■  and  lays  him  low  at  the  foot  of  tlie  cross.     Hence 
it  cannot  be  so  agreeable  to  the  feelings  of  our 
carnal  heart.     But  may  it  not  be  more  salutary, 
nevertheless?     It  is  not  always  the  most  agreeable 
*  Gladstone's  Life  of  Whitefield,  p.  199. 


136  CALVINISM  IN  HISTORY. 

medicine  which  is  the  most  healing.  The  experi- 
ence of  the  apostle  John  is  one  of  frequent  occur- 
rence, that  the  little  book  which  is  sweet  as  honey- 
in  the  mouth  is  bitter  in  the  belly.  Christ  crucified 
was  a  stumbling-block  to  one  class  of  people  and 
foolishness  to  another,  and  yet  he  was,  and  is,  the 
power  of  God  and  the  wisdom  of  God  unto  salva- 
tion to  all  who  believe. 

The  centre  doctrine  of  Calvinism,  as  an  evangel- 
istic power,  is  that  which  Luther  called  "  the  article 
of  a  standing  or  a  falling  Church" — *^ justification 
by  faith  alone,  in  the  righteousness  of  Christ  alone.'^ 
And  is  not  that  the  doctrine-  of  the  gospel  ?  Where 
does  the  Holy  Spirit  ascribe  the  merit  of  any  part 
of  salvation  to  the  sinner? 

But  aside  from  that  question,  which  it  is  not  my 
purpose  here  to  argue,  would  not  reason  dictate 
that  that  doctrine  is  most  conducive  to  salvation 
which  makes  most  of  sin  and  most  of  grace? 

Eowland  Hill  once  said  that  "the  devil  makes 
little  of  sin,  that  he  may  retain  the  sinner."  It  is 
evident  at  once  that  the  man  who  considers  him- 
self in  greatest  danger  will  make  the  greatest  efforts 
to  escape.  If  I  feel  that  I  am  only  slightly  indis- 
posed, I  shall  not  experience  much  anxiety,  but  if 
I  am  conscious  that  my  disease  is  dangerous,  I  will 


AS  AN  EVANGELIZING  FORCE.  137 

lose  no  time  in  having  it  attended  to.  So  if  I  feel, 
according  to  Arminianism,  that  my  salvation  is  a 
matter  which  I  can  settle  myself  at  any  moment, 
even  in  the  last  gasp  of  dissolution,  I  shall  be  prone 
to  take  my  time  and  ease  in  deciding  it;  but  if, 
according  to  Calvinism,  I  feel  that  I  am  dependent 
upon  God  for  it,  whose  pleasure,  and  not  my  own, 
I  am  to  consult,  I  will  naturally  give  more  earnest 
heed  to  it. 

Thus  Reason  brings  forward  her  vindication  of 
Calvinism  against  the  allegation  that  it  is  not  favor- 
able to  the  pursuit  of  salvation. 

But  perhaps  some  one  may  reply,  "  Has  not  the 
Methodist  Church  been  more  successful  in  her 
efforts  to  evangelize  the  world  than  any  Calvinis- 
tic  Church?"  In  answer  I  would  say  that  I  will 
give  way  to  no  one  in  my  high  estimate  of  that 
Church's  piety  and  zeal  and  progress.  I  4^hank 
God,  with  all  my  heart,  for  what  she  has  done, 
and  I  pray  that  she  may  never  flag  in  her  energy 
and  success  in  winning  souls  to  Jesus  Christ.  I 
admire  her  profoundly,  and  her  noble  army  of  men 
and  women  enlisted  in  the  Master's  service.  May 
she  ever  go  on,  conquering  and  to  conquer,  until 
we  all  meet  as  one  on  the  great  day  of  the  triumph 
of  the  Lamb ! 


138  CALVINISM  IN  HISTORY. 

But  bear  in  mind  that  that  aggressive  Church 
has  no  well-defined  system  of  doctrine,  and  that 
her  Arminianism  is  of  a  very  mild  type,  coming 
nowhere  near  that  of  High-Churchism  or  Roman 
Catholicism.  Wherein  lie  the  elements  of  her 
power  and  progress  ?  I  do  not  believe,  and  I  am 
confident  it  cannot  be  shown,  that  they  lie  in  her 
Arminianism  or  in  the  doctrines  Avhich  are  pecu- 
liarly her  own,  but  rather  in  the  earnest  and  bold 
declaration  of  those  doctrines  common  to  all  the 
Christian  churches,  such  as  sin,  justification,  re- 
generation and  holiness,  and  in  her  admirable 
system  of  itinerancy,  by  w^hich  she  keeps  all  her 
stations  manned  and  sends  forward  fresh  men 
to  ewevf  new  field.  Let  her  preach  Arminianism 
strictly  and  logically,  and  she  will  soon  lose  her 
aggressiveness,  or  become  another  institution  than 
an  evangelical  Church  of  Christ. 

Furthermore,  Arminianism  in  the  Methodist 
Church  is  but  a  century  old.  It  has  never  passed 
through  the  years  or  the  convulsions  through  which 
Calvinism  has  passed.  Will  it  continue  in  the  ages 
to  come  to  be  the  diffusive  power  w^hich  it  has  been 
for  these  years  past?  Of  this  I  am  persuaded, 
looking  at  the  history  and  workings  of  religious 
opinions  in  the  past:  that  that  Church  will  be  con- 


AS  AN  EVANGELIZING  FORCE.  139 

strained  in  time  to  put  forth  a  systematic  and  log- 
ical Confession  of  Faith,*  out  of  which  she  will 
either  drop  all  peculiarly  Arminian  doctrines,  and 
so  secure  her  permanency,  or  in  which  she  will 
proclaim  them,  and  by  that  means  will  inject  the 
poison  of  death,  as  an  evangelizing  body,  into  her 
system.  A  thorough  Arminianism  and  a  practical 
evangelism  have  never  yet  remained  long  in  lov- 
ing harmony.  Look  at  the  history  of  doctrines 
as  illustrated  in  the  history  of  the  Church  of  Rome, 
and  you  will  see  this  clearly  attested.  Arminian- 
ism, in  its  principles,  had  been  in  operation  in  that 
Church  for  centuries  when  the  Reformation  broke 
forth,  and  what  evangelistic  work  had  it  done  ?  It 
had  indeed  converted  almost  the  entire  world,  but 
to  what  had  it  converted  it  ?  It  had  formed  and 
established  the  largest  and  most  powerful  Church 
which  the  world  has  ever  seen,  but  what  had  it 
done  for  the  salvation  of  human  bodies  and 
souls  ?  It  had  made  Romanists,  but  it  had  not 
made  Christians  equally  as  numerous.  Was  it 
not  the  very  principles  of  the  Calvinistic  theol- 
ogy which  flashed  light  upon  the  thick  darkness, 
and  threw  fire   into    the  corrupt   mass,  and   lifc- 

*  I  do  not  forget,  and  do  not  disparage,  Richard  Watson's 
Theological  Institutes. 


140  CALVINISM  IN  HISTORY. 

ed  up  the  banner  of  the  cross,  so  long  trodden 
under  a  debased  hierarchy,  and  revived  the  ancient 
faith  of  the  Church,  and  established  the  great  Prot- 
estant and  evangelical  denominations  of  Christians  ? 
Who  but  Calvinists — or,  as  formerly  called,  Augus- 
tinians — were  the  forerunners  of  the  Reformers? 
Such  was  Wycliffe,  "  the  morning  star  of  the  Refor- 
mation ;"  such  was  John  of  Goch  and  John  of  Wesa- 
lia  and  John  of  Wessel,  ^^  the  light  of  the  world ;'' 
and  Savonarola  of  Florence,  who  thundered  with 
such  terrible  vehemence  against  the  sins  of  the 
clergy  and  people,  who  refused  a  cardinal's  hat  for 
his  silence,  saying,  "  he  wished  no  red  hat,  but  one 
reddened  with  his  own  .blood,  the  hat  given  to  the 
saints  "-^who  even  demanded  the  removal  of  the 
pope,  and,  scorning  all  presents  and  promises  and 
honors  on  condition  of  "  holding  his  tongue,^'  gave 
his  life  for  the  holy  cause — another  victim  of  priest- 
ly profligacy  and  bloodthirstiness.  Every  great  lu- 
minary which  in  the  Church  immediately  preceded 
the  greater  lights  of  the  Reformation  was  in  princi- 
ple a  Calvinist.  Such  also  were  the  great  national 
Reformers,  as  Luther  of  Germany,  Zwingle  of  Switz- 
erland, Calvin  of  France,  Cranmer  of  England, 
Knox  of  Scotland.  "  Although  each  movement 
was  self-originated,  and  different  from  the  others 


AS  AN  EVANGELIZING  FORCE.  141 

in  many  permanent  characteristics/^  *  it  was  thor- 
oughly Calvinistic.  These  men  were  driven  to 
this  theological  belief,  not  by  their  peculiar  intel- 
lectual endowments,  but  from  their  study  of  the 
word  of  God  and  the  moral  necessities  of  the 
Church  and  the  world.  They  felt  that  half  meas- 
ures were  useless — that  it  was  worse  than  folly  to 
seek  to  unite  a  system  of  saving  works  with  a  sys- 
tem of  saving  faith.  So  "  Calvinism  in  its  sharp 
and  logical  structure,  in  its  moral  earnestness,  in  its 
demand  for  the  reformation  of  ecclesiastical  abuses, 
found  a  response  in  the  consciences  of  good  men.^f 
It  was  it  which  swept,  like  a  prairie-fire,  over  the 
Continent,  devouring  the  fabric  of  works  of  right- 
eousness. He  who  is  most  familiar  with  the  his- 
tory of  those  times  will  most  readily  agree  with  the 
startling  statement  of  Dr.  Cunningham  (successor  to 
Dr.  Chalmers),  that,  "next  to  Paul,  John  Calvin 
has  done  most  for  the  world.'^ 

So  thoroughly  was  the  Reformed  world  Calvin- 
istic three  hundred  years  ago  that  it  was  almost 
entirely  Presbyterian.  J  The  French  Protestant 
Church  was  as  rigidly  Presbyterian  as  the  Scotch 
Church.      "There  are  many  acts  of   her  synod," 

*  Dr.  Hodge.  t  Dr.  Fisher,  Hist.  Ref. 

X  Dr.  Breed's  Pi-esbyterianism  Three  Hundred  Years  Ago. 


142  CALVINIS3I  IN  HISTORY 


says  the  late  Dr.  Charles  Hodge,  "  which  would 
make  modern  ears  tiogle,  and  which  prove  that 
American  Presbyterianism,  in  its  strictest  forms,  is 
a  sucking  dove  compared  to  that  of  the  immediate 
descendants  of  the  Reformers."  * 

There  was,  of  course,  as  there  always  has  been, 
greater  diversity  in  the  matters  of  church  govern- 
ment than  in  the  doctrines  of  faith ;  yet  even  in  these 
there  was  an  almost  unanimous  agreement  that  the 
presbyterial  was  the  form  of  government  most  in 
accord  with  the  teachings  of  Scripture.  Dr.  John 
Reynolds,  who  was  in  his  day  regarded  as  perhaps 
the  most  learned  man  in  the  Church  of  England, 
said,  in  answer  to  Bancroft,  chaplain  to  the  arch- 
bishop,'who  had  broached  what  was  then  called 
"  the  novelty  "  that  the  bishops  are  a  distinct  order 
superior  to  the  ordinary  clergymen,  "  All  who  have 
for  five  hundred  years  last  past  endeavored  the 
reformation  of  the  Church  have  taught  that  all 
pastors,  whether  they  be  called  bishops  or  priests, 
are  invested  with  equal  authority  and  power;  as, 
first,  the  Waldenses,  next  Marsilius  Patavianus, 
then  Wycliife  and  his  scholars,  afterward  Huss  and 
the  Hussites,  and,  last  of  all,  Luther,  Calvin,  Bren- 
tius,  Bullinger  and  Musculus.  Among  ourselves 
*  Const  Hist. 


AS  AN  EVANGELIZING  FORCE.  143 

we  have  bishops,  the  queen's  professors  of  divinity 
in  our  universities  and  other  learned  men  consent- 
ing therein,  as  Bradford,  Lambert,  Jewel,  Pilking- 
ton,  etc.  But  why  do  I  speak  of  particular  persons  ? 
It  is  the  common  judgment  of  the  Reformed  churches 
of  Helvetia,  Savoy,  France,  Scotland,  Germany, 
Hungary,  Poland,  the  Low  Countries  and  our 
own."  * 

If  we  now  turn  to  the  fruits  of  Calvinism  in  the 
form  of  devoted  Christians  and  in  the  number  of 
churches  established,  we  shall  see  that  it  has  been 
the  most  powerful  evangelistic  system  of  religious 
belief  in  the  world.  Consider  with  what  amazing 
rapidity  it  spread  over  Europe,  converting  thou- 
sands upon  thousands  to  a  living  Christianity.  In 
about  twenty-five  years  from  the  time  when  Cal- 
vin began  his  work  there  were  tivo  thousand  places 
of  Calvinistic  worship,  with  almost  half  a  milUon 
of  worshipers,  in  France  alone.  When  Ambrose 
Willie,  a  man  who  had  studied  theology  at  the 
feet  of  Calvin  in  Geneva,  preached  at  Ernonville 
Bridge,  near  Tournay,  in  1556,  twenty  thousand 
people  assembled  to  hear  him.  Peter  Gabriel  had 
also  for  an  audience  in  the  same  year,  near  Haar- 
lem, "tens  of  thousands;''  and  we  can  judge  of  the 

*  Breed's  Presbyferianism  Three  Hwndred  Years  Ago,  p.  24,  25, 


144  CALVINISM  IN  HISTORY. 

theological  character  of  his  sermon  from  his  text, 
which  was,  ^^For  by  grace  are  ye  saved  through 
faith ;  and  that  not  of  yourselves ;  it  is  the  gift  of 
God :  not  of  works,  lest  any  man  should  boast ;  for 
we  are  his  workmanship,  created  in  Christ  Jesus 
unto  good  works,  which  God  hath  before  ordained 
that  we  should  walk  in  them.''* 

These  are  but  two  of  the  many  examples  of  the 
intense  awakening  produced  by  the  earnest  preach- 
ing of  the  Calvinistic  doctrines.  So  great  were  the 
effects  that  in  three  years  after  this  time  a  General 
Synod  was  held  in  Paris,  at  which  a  Confession  of 
Faith  was  adopted.  Two  years  after  the  meeting 
of  the  Synod — that  is,  in  1561 — the  Calvinists 
numbcBed  one-fourth  of  the  entire  French  popu- 
lation.f  And  in  less  than  half  a  century  this 
so-called  harsh  system  of  belief  had  penetrated 
every  part  of  the  land,  and  had  gained  to  its 
standards  almost  one-half  of  the  population  and 
almost  every  great  mind  in  the  nation.  So  numer- 
ous and  powerful  had  its  adherents  become  that 
for  a  time  it  appeared  as  if  the  entire  nation 
would  be  swept  over  to  their  views.  Smiles,  in  his 
Huguenots  in  France,X  says:  "It  is  curious  to 
speculate  on  the  influence  which  the  reljgion  of 

*  Eph.  2  :  8-10.  f  Fisher,  ^s^  Ref.  %  P.  100. 


AS  AN  EVANGELIZING  FORCE.  145 

Calvin,  himself  a  Frenchman,  might  have  exer- 
cised on  the  history  of  France,  as  well  as  on  the 
individual  character  of  the  Frenchman,  had  the 
balance  of  forces  carried  the  nation  bodily  over  to 
Protestantism,  as  was  very  nearly  the  case^  toward 
the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century."  Certain  it  is 
that  the  nation  would  have  had  a  different  history 
from  that  which  she  has  had.  But  it  is  interesting 
to  mark  how  rapidly  Calvin's  opinions  had  spread 
in  his  native  land,  and  to  note  the  evangelistic  effect 
of  that  system  of  doctrine  which  bears  his  name. 
Its  marvelous  evangelizing  power  lies  no  doubt  in 
its  scriptural  thought  and  phraseology,  and  its  in- 
tense spirituality  and  lofty  enthusiasm  and  logical 
strength.  Luther,  though  Calvinistic  in  his  doc- 
trinal beliefs,  weakened  his  system  by  his  conces- 
sions to  princes  and  ceremonies.  He  "hesitated,'' 
says  the  historian  Bancroft,*  "to  deny  the  real 
presence,  and  was  indifferent  to  the  observance  of 
external  ceremonies.  Calvin,  with  sterner  dialec- 
tics, sanctioned  by  the  influence  of  the  purest  life 
and  by  his  power  as  the  ablest  writer  of  his  age, 
attacked  the  Roman  doctrine  respecting  commu- 
nion, and  esteemed  as  a  commemoration  a  rite 
which  the  Catholics  revered  as  a  sacrifice.     Luther 

*  Hist.  U.  S.,  i.  pp.  277,  278. 
10 


146  CALVINTSM  IN  HISTORY. 

acknowledged  princes  as  his  protectors,  and  in  the 
ceremonies  of  worship  favored  magnificence  as  an 
aid  to  devotion ;  Calvin  was  the  guide  of  Swiss 
republics,  and  avoided,  in  their  churches,  all  ap- 
peals to  the  senses  as  a  crime  against  religion.  ,  .  . 
Luther  permitted  the  cross  and  taper,  pictures  and 
images,  as  things  of  indifference.  Calvin  demand- 
ed a  spiritual  worship  in  its  utmost  purity."  Hence 
it  was  that  Calvinism,  by  bringing  the  truth  directly 
to  bear  upon  the  mind  and  heart,  made  its  greater 
and  more  permanent  conquests,  and  subjected  it- 
self to  the  fiercer  opposition  and  persecution  of 
Romanism. 

"  The  Lutheran  Reformation,"  says  Dyer  in  his 
Histm-y  of  Modern  Europe*  "  traveled  but  little  out 
of  Germany  and  the  neighboring  Scandinavian 
kingdoms;  while  Calvinism  obtained  a  European 
character,  and  was  adopted  in  all  the  countries  that 
adopted  a  reformation  from  without,  as  France,  as 
the  Netherlands,  Scotland,  even  England ;  for  the 
early  English  Reformation  under  Edward  YI.  was 
Calvinistic,  and  Calvin  was  incontestably  the  father 
of  our  Puritans  and  dissenters.  Thus,  under  his 
rule,  Geneva  may  be  said  to  have  become  the  cap- 
itol  of  European  Reform." 

^  Vol.  ii.  p.  7. 


AS  AN  EVANGELIZING  FORCE.  147 

A  similar  testimony  is  that  of  Francis  de  Sales,- 
who  in  one  of  his  letters  to  the  duke  of  Savoy 
urged  the  suppression  of  Geneva  as  the  capitol  of 
what  the  Romish  Church  calls  heresy.  "All  the 
heretics,"  said  he,  "  respect  Geneva  as  the  asylum 
of  their  religion.  .  .  .  There  is  not  a  city  in  Eu- 
rope which  offers  more  facilities  for  the  encourage- 
ment of  heresy,  for  it  is  the  gate  of  France,  of 
Italy  and  Germany,  so  that  one  finds  there  people 
of  all  nations — Italians,  French,  Germans,  Poles, 
Spaniards,  English,  and  of  countries  still  more  re- 
mote. Besides,  every  one  knows  the  great  number 
of  ministers  bred  there.  Last  year  it  furnished 
twenty  to  France.  Even  England  obtains  minis- 
ters from  Geneva.  AVhat  shall  I  say  of  its  mag- 
nificent printing-establishments,  by  means  of  which 
the  city  floods  the  world  with  its  wicked  books, 
and  even  goes  the  length  of  distributing  them  at 
the  public  expense  ?  .  .  .  All  the  enterprises  under- 
taken against  the  Holy  See  and  the  Catholic  princes 
have  their  beginnings  at  Geneva.  No  city  in  Eu- 
rope receives  more  apostates  of  all  grades,  secular 
and  regular.  From  thence  I  conclude  that  Geneva 
being  destroyed  would  naturally  lead  to  the  dissi- 
pation of  heresy.''  * 

*  Vie  de  Ste.  Frangois  de  Scdea,  par  sn7i  neveu,  p.  120. 


148  CALVINISM  IN  HISTORY. 

God  had  ordered  it  that  Geneva,  so  accessible  to 
all  the  nations  of  Western  Europe,  should  be  the 
honne  of  Calvin,  from  which  he  could  most  effici- 
ently carry  on  his  work  of  enlightenment  and  civil- 
ization. And  so  important  to  the  cause  of  Protest- 
antism had  that  city  become  that  upon  it,  in  the  opin- 
ion of  Francis  de  Sales,  the  whole  cause  depended. 

Almost  marvelous  indeed  was  the  rapid  spread 
of  the  doctrines  of  Calvinism.  Dyer  says:* 
"  Calvinism,  still  more  inimical  to  Rome  than  the 
doctrines  of  Luther,  had,  from  Geneva,  its  centre 
and  stronghold,  spread  itself  in  all  directions  in 
Western  Europe.  In  the  neighboring  provinces 
of  Germany  it  had  in  a  great  degree  supplanted 
Lutheranism,  and  had  even  penetrated  into  Hun- 
gary and  Poland ;  it  was  predominant  in  Scotland, 
and  had  leavened  the  doctrines  of  the  English 
Church.  .  .  .  The  pope  could  reckon  only  upon 
Spain  and  Italy  as  sound  and  secure,  with  a  few 
islands  and  the  Venetian  provinces  in  Dalmatia 
and  Greece.  ...  Its  converts  belonged  chiefly  (in 
France)  to  the  higher  ranks,  including  many  of 
the  clergy,  monks,  nuns,  and  even  bishops ;  and 
the  Catholic  churches  seemed  almost  deserted,  ex- 
cept by  the  lower  classes." 

*  Hist.  Mod.  Europe,  vol.  ii.  pp.  136,  392. 


AS  AN  EVANGELIZING  FORCE.  149 

From  this  brief  survey  we  are  enabled  to  per- 
ceive something  of  the  wonderful  evangelizing 
force  of  this  system  of  belief.  It  was  the  only 
system  able  to  cope  with  the  great  powers  of  the 
Komish  Church,  and  overthrow  them;  and  for 
two  centuries  it  was  accepted  in  all  Protestant 
countries  as  the  final  account  of  the  relations  be- 
tween man  and  his  Maker.*  In  fact,  there  is  no 
other  system  which  has  displayed  so  powerful  an 
evangelizing  force  as  Calvinism. 

This  becomes  still  more  manifest  in  the  history 
of  the  great  revivals  with  which  the  Christian 
Church  has  been  blessed. 

Many  are  accustomed  to  think  that  revivals  be- 
long peculiarly  to  the  Methodist  Church,  whereas, 
in  fact,  that  Church  has  never  yet  inaugurated  a 
great  national  or  far-spreading  revival.  Her  revi- 
vals are  marked  with  localisms ;  they  are  connected 
with  particular  churches,  and  do  not  make  a  deep, 
abiding  and  general  impression  on  society.  The 
first  great  Christian  revival  occurred  under  the 
preaching  of  Peter  in  Jerusalem,  who  employed 
such  language  in  his  discourse  or  discourses  as 
this:  "Him,  being  delivered  by  the  determinate 
counsel  and  foreknowledge  of  God,  ye  have  taken, 
*  Froude,  Ccdvinism,  p.  4. 


150  CALVINISM  IN  HISTORY. 

and  by  wicked  hands  have  crucified  and  slain." 
That  is  Calvinism  rigid  enough.  Passing  over 
the  greatest  revival  of  modern  times,  the  Reforma- 
tion, which,  as  all  know,  was  under  the  preaching 
of  Calvinism,  we  come  to  our  own  land.  The  era 
of  revivals  in  this  country  is  usually  reckoned  from 
the  year  1792.  But  in  1740  there  was  a  marked 
revival  under  the  preaching  of  the  Rev.  Jonathan 
Dickinson,  a  Presbyterian  clergyman.  It  was 
about  this  time  also  that  George  Whitefield,  called 
in  his  day  "  the  great  Methodist,"  a  clergyman  of 
the  Church  of  England  and  an  uncompromising 
Calvinist,  was  startling  the  ungodly  in  Philadel- 
phia. It  is  recorded  that  he  threw  "a  horrid 
gloom"  over  this  fashionable  and  worldly  old 
town,  "  and  put  a  stop  to  the  dancing-schools,  as- 
semblies and  every  pleasant  thing."  Strange,  in- 
deed, that  dissipation  and  vanity  are  "pleasant 
things,"  while  holiness  and  salvation  from  hell  are 
disagreeable  things !  But  this  great  man,  in  com- 
pany with  Gilbert  Tennent,  a  Presbyterian  clergy- 
man, of  whom  Whitefield  said,  "  He  is  a  son  of 
thunder,"  and  "  hypocrites  must  either  soon  be  con- 
verted or  enraged  at  his  preaching,"  was  arousing 
multitudes  by  his  fiery,  impassioned,  consecrated 
eloquence. 


AS  AN  EVANGELIZING  FORCE,  151 

We  speak  of  the  Methodist  Church  beginning  in 
a  revival.  And  so  it  did.  But  the  first  and  chief 
actor  in  that  revival  was  not  Wesley,  but  White- 
field.  Though  a  younger  man  than  Wesley,  it  was 
he  who  first  went  forth  preaching  in  the  fields  and 
gathering  multitudes  of  followers,  and  raising  money 
and  building  chapels.  It  was  Whitefield  who  in- 
voked the  two  Wesleys  to  his  aid.  And  he  had  to 
employ  much  argument  and  persuasion  to  overcome 
their  prejudices  against  the  movement.  Whitefield 
began  the  great  work  at  Bristol  and  Kingswood, 
and  had  found  thousands  flocking  to  his  side,  ready 
to  be  organized  into  churches,  when  he  appealed  to 
AVesley  for  assistance.  Wesley,  with  all  his  zeal, 
had  been  quite  a  High-Churchman  in  many  of  his 
views.  He  believed  in  immersing  even  the  infants, 
and  demanded  that  dissenters  should  be  rebaptized 
before  being  taken  into  the  Church.  He  could  not 
think  of  preaching  in  any  place  but  in  a  church. 
"  He  should  have  thought,^'  as  he  said,  '^  the  saving 
of  souls  almost  a  sin  if  it  had  not  been  done  in  a 
church."*  Hence  when  Whitefield  called  on  John 
Wesley  to  engage  with  him  in  the  popular  move- 
ment, he  shrank  back.  Finally,  he  yielded  to 
Whitefield's  persuasions,  but,  he  allowed  himself 

*  Lecky,  Hist.  England,  Eighteenth  Century,  vol.  ii.  p.  612. 


152  CALVINISM  IN  HISTORY. 

to  be  governed  in  the  decision  by  what  many 
would  regard  as  a  superstition.  He  and  Charles 
first  opened  their  Bibles  at  random  to  see  if  their 
eyes  should  fall  on  a  text  which  might  decide  them. 
But  the  texts  were  all  foreign  to  the  subject.  Then 
he  had  recourse  to  sortilege,  and  cast  lots  to  decide 
the  matter.  The  lot  drawn  was  the  one  marked  for 
him  to  consent,  and  so  he  consented.  Thus  he  was 
led  to  undertake  the  work  with  which  his  name  has 
been  so  intimately  and  honorably  associated  ever 
since. 

So  largely  was  the  Methodist  movement  owing 
to  Whitefield  that  he  was  called  "the  Calvinistic 
establisher  of  Methodism,"  and  to  the  end  of  his 
life  he. remained  the  representative  of  it  in  the 
eyes  of  the  learned  world.  Walpole,  in  his  Letters, 
speaks  only  once  of  Wesley  in  connection  with  the 
rise  of  Methodism,  while  he  frequently  speaks  of 
Whitefield  in  connection  with  it.  Mant,  in  his 
course  of  lectures  against  Methodism,  speaks  of  it 
as  an  entirely  Calvinistic  affair.*  Neither  the 
mechanism  nor  the  force  which  gave  rise  to  it 
originated  with  Wesley.f  Field-preaching,  which 
gave  the  whole  movement  its  aggressive  character, 

*  £ampton  Lectures,  for  1812. 

t  Wedgewood's  Life  of  John  Wesley,  p.  157. 


AS  AN  EVANGELIZING  FORCE,  153 

and  fitted  and  enabled  it  to  cope  with  the  powerful 
agencies  which  were  armed  against  it,  was  begun 
by  Whitefield,  whilst  "Wesley  was  dragged  into  it 
reluctantly."  In  the  polite  language  of  the  day 
"Calvinism"  and  "Methodism"  were  synonymous 
terms,  and  the  Methodists  were  called  "another  sect 
of  Presbyterians."  *  The  sainted  Toplady  said  of 
the  time,  "Arminianism  is  the  great  religious  evil  of 
this  age  and  country.  It  has  more  or  less  infected 
every  Protestant  denomination  amongst  us,  and  bids 
fair  for  leaving  us,  in  a  short  time,  not  so  much  as 
the  very  profession  of  godliness.  .  .  .  We  have  gen- 
erally forsaken  the  principles  of  the  Reformation, 
and  ^  Ichabod,'  the  glory  is  departed,  has  been  written 
on  most  of  our  pulpits  and  church-doors  ever  since." 

It  was  Calvinism,  and  not  Arminianism,  which 
originated  (so  far  as  any  system  of  doctrines  orig- 
inated) the  great  religious  movement  in  which  the 
Methodist  Church  was  born. 

While,  therefore,  Wesley  is  to  be  honored  for  his 
work  in  behalf  of  that  Church,  we  should  not  fail 
to  remember  the  great  Calvinist,  George  Whitefield, 
who  gave  that  Church  her  first  beginnings  and  her 
most  distinctive  character.  Had  he  lived  longer, 
and  not  shrunk  from  the  thought  of  being  the 
*  Bampton  Lectures,  for  1812. 


154  CALVINISM  IN  HISTORY. 

founder  of  a  Church,  far  different  would  have 
been  the  results  of  his  labors.  As  it  was,  he 
gathered  congregations  for  others  to  form  into 
churches,  and  built  chapels  for  others  to  preach 
in. 

In  all  that  awakening  in  this  country  it  was  such 
Calvinists  as  Whitefield,  Tennent,  Edwards,  Brain- 
erd,  and,  at  a  later  day,  Nettleton  and  Griffin,  who 
were  the  chief  actors.  "  The  Great  Revival  of 
1800,"  as  it  is  called,  began  toward  the  close  of 
the  last  century  and  continued  for  a  generation 
into  this.  During  that  time  it  was  one  series  of 
awakenings.  It  spread  far  and  wide,  refreshing 
and  multiplying  the  churches.  It  was  the  begin- 
ning of  all  those  great  religious  movements  for 
which  our  century  is  so  noted.  The  doctrines 
which  were  employed  to  bring  it  about  were 
those,  as  a  recent  writer  remarks,  "which  are 
commonly  distinguished  as  Calvinistic."  *  "The 
work,''  says  another,  "was  begun  and  carried  on 
in  this  country  under  the  preaching  and  influence 
of  the  doctrines  contained  in  the  Confession  of 
Faith  of  the  Presbyterian  Church." f  "It  is 
wonderful   how   the   holy   influence   of    Jonathan 

*  Speer's  Great  Revival  of  1800,  p.  52. 
t  Dr.  Snail.  Kalston's  Letters. 


AS  AN  EVANGELIZING   FORCE.  155 

Edwards,  David  Brainerd  and  others  of  that  day 
is  to  be  traced  at  the  root  of  the  revival  and 
missionary  efforts  of  all  sects  and  lands.^^  * 

The  revival  which  began  in  New  England,  and 
which  was  the  greatest  that  had,  until  that  time, 
been  witnessed  in  the  American  colonies,  resulted, 
under  the  blessing  of  God,  from  a  series  of  doc- 
trinal sermons  preached  by  Jonathan  Edwards. 

But  I  cannot  continue  to  specify  instances.  Let 
it  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  men  who  have 
awakened  the  consciences  and  swayed  the  masses, 
and  brought  the  multitudes  to  the  feet  of  Jesus, 
not  in  a  temporary  excitement,  but  in  a  perpetual 
covenant,  have  been  such  Calvinists  as  Ambrose 
Willie,  and  John  Knox,  and  Thomas  Chalmers, 
and  George  Whitefield,  and  Jonathan  Edwards, 
and  Griffin,  Nettleton,  Moody,  and,  last  but  not 
least,  Spurgeon. 

Calvinism  may  be  unpopular  in  some  quarters. 
But  w4iat  of  that  ?  It  cannot  be  more  unpopular 
than  the  doctrines  of  sin  and  grace  as  revealed  in 
the  New  Testament.  But  much  of  its  unpopular- 
ity is  due  to  the  fact  of  its  not  being  understood. 
Let  it  be  examined  without  passion,  let  it  be.  stud- 
ied in  its  relations  and  logical  consistency,  and  it 
*Speer's  Great  Revival,  p.  112. 


156  CALVINISM  IN  HISTORY. 

will  be  seen  to  be  at  least  a  correct  transcript  of 
the  teachings  of  the  Scriptures,  of  the  laws  of 
Nature  and  of  the  facts  of  human  life.  If  the 
faith  and  piety  of  the  Church  be  weak  to-day,  it 
is,  I  am  convinced,  in  a  great  measure  because  of 
the  lack  of  a  full,  clear,  definite  knowledge  and 
promulgation  of  these  doctrines.  The  Church  has 
been  having  a  reign  of  candyism;  she  has  been 
feeding  on  pap  sweetened  with  treacle,  until  she 
has  become  disordered  and  weakly.  Give  her  a 
more  clearly-defined  and  a  more  firmly-grasped 
faith,  and  she  will  lift  herself  up  in  her  glorious 
might  before  the  world. 

All  history  and  experience  prove  the  correctness 
of  Carlyje's  saying,  that  "At  all  turns  a  man  who 
will  do  faithfully  needs  to  believe  fiy^mly,^^  It  is  this, 
I  believe,  that  the  Church  needs  to-day  more  than 
any  other  thing — not  "rain-doctors,''  not  religious 
"diviners,"  wandering  to  and  fro,  rejoicing  in 
having  no  dogmatic  opinions  and  no  theological 
preferences;  no,  it  is  not  these  religious  ear-tick- 
lers that  are  needed — although  they  may  be  wanted 
somewhere — but,  as  history  teaches  us,  clear  and 
accurate  views  of  the  great  fundamental  doctrines 
of  sin  and  grace.  First  make  the  tree  good,  and 
the  fruit  will  be  good.     A  good  tree  cannot  bring 


AS  AN  EVANGELIZING  FORCE.  157 

forth  evil  fruit.  It  is  not  for  us  to  trifle  with  these 
matters.  Our  time  here  is  but  for  a  moment,  and 
our  eternity  depends  on  the  course  we  take.  Should 
we  not,  then,  seek  to  know  the  truth,  and  strive,  at 
any  cost,  to  buy  it,  and  sell  it  not? 

By  all  the  terrors  of  an  endless  death,  as  by  all 
the  glories  of  an  endless  life,  we  are  called  and 
pressed  and  urged  to  know  the  truth  and  follow  it 
unto  the  end.  And  this  joy  we  have,  in  and  over 
all  as  the  presence  of  a  divine  radiance,  "  that  He 
which  hath  begun  a  good  work  in  you  will  perform 
it  until  the  day  of  Jesus  Christ."  So  grant,  thou 
Holy  Spirit  of  God,  to  begin  the  work  in  every 
one  of  us;  and  to  thee,  with  the  Father  and  the 
Son,  shall  be  all  the  praise  and  the  glory  for  ever ! 
Amen. 


THE   END. 


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